BILANG PILIPINO | Poll watchdog submits recommendations on improving automated elections

August 31, 2021 , 05:29 PM

By Clarist Zablan

(August 31, 2021) – A poll watchdog on Tuesday suggested to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) a set of measures to ensure a credible and fraud-free balloting next year to prevent protests which could lead to political instability.

The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) said the country does not need a repeat of technical issues which marred past electronic voting, which raised doubts on transparency and independence of the polls because of glitches and delays in transmission of election returns (ER).

“Noong mga nakaraang automated eleksyon noong 2019 may problema sa pagiging transparent gaya ng di pagboto sa ilang posisyon sa balota, na kung naiwan ay nagbago sa resulta ng halalan,” Eric Alvia, NAMFREL secretary-general said in a press briefing.

He said putting the election system software under an open source license, making its source code freely available to the public will help make the elections more transparent and credible.

In the previous elections, a proprietary software was used that came from the foreign company Smartmatic, which also supplied vote counting machines. The proprietary license limited the access and knowledge of the software.

Namfrel also suggested using a single markup language to streamline the data format of the automated system and avert delays and glitches in releasing the ERs, or the tallies of every precinct.

The 2019 polls saw massive delays in the release of ERs of as much as seven hours, which Namfrel attributed to the use of too many markup languages between machines.

Namfrel also proposed using a QR code where anyone with a phone device can view the ERs and verify the tallies.

“Kahit sinong indibidwal na gustong gumawa ng sariling pagbibilang ay maaaring gawin ito, ay mabilis makuha ang datos,” another NAMFREL official JR Contreras said. “Makakatulong din ito sa pag-audit ng resulta sa presinto,”

Namfrel also advised that the digital signature of ERs should come from the electoral board rather than from the Comelec.

“Ang digital signature, dapat sa mga electoral board manggaling,” Contreras said.

“Sila ang dapat pumirma ng resulta ng ER at di pipirma na galing lang sa Comelec mismo. Di dapat primahan ng kahit sino ang pirma na dapat ay mula sayo,”

The election watchdog also proposed revising the formatting of the ballot by assigning random numbers to candidates instead of being listed in alphabetical order, while arranging party lists in random order.

The watchdog found that this can help reduce the prevalence of personality politics, and also prevent undervoting caused by voters who forget to fill in the back of the ballot.

“Napag-aralan namin na mas mahusay na numero gamitin dahil mas madaling matandaan ito, at saka sa mga di masyadong nakasulat at nakakabasa, pag numero natatandaan nila,” Alvia said.

“Pangalawa, advantage of being put in the list because surname starts with a higher alphabet… Nawawala advantage kung una ka sa listahan, kaya mga nakikita sa partylist inuuna numero nila para maka gain ng advantage.”

Namfrel is currently awaiting a response from Comelec.

(MM)

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