MIS (Assignment 3)

AUTOMATED ELECTION REVIEWS

Overview During election times and winning candidates has been announced, those who have seriously doubted the wisdom of participating in the voting exercise would say that many candidates win because of shameless cheating in the polls. Many wished to witness honest elections where there will be no flying voters, which their votes will be counted, and there would be no dagdag-bawas (adding and dropping votes). That would be realized soon starting with the 2010 polls. And that’s on account of the passage of RA 9369, or the Amended Elections Automation Law.

What is automated election?

Election automation refers to the use of computing technology to help conduct elections. The Filipino people nationwide and abroad have been looking forward to the upcoming National Election to be held by the year 2010 (definitely next year). Elections are especially important as indicators of civic virtue. We can see those early political advertisements in our television; we can hear those usual promises in radios and even read political issues on the newspapers. The media had been set an eye to the hottest issues surrounded by the planned of having an automated election.

Security Issues

The Filipinos believed that automation can help to reduce or eliminate corruption. We agree that election automation technology is workable and key to electoral reform. Others say that it’s nearly impossible to cheat using computerized vote-counting machines unlike having a manual election where cheating can be easily committed. Also, it has been demonstrated in other democratic electoral systems that automation reduces opportunities for cheating because of less human intervention based on the experience of other election count systems, automation can eliminate fraud in reading the ballot, recording the precinct results and consolidating the municipal and provincial tallies or total. The claim that poll automation can either eliminate or substantially reduce incidents of election manipulation is based on the notion that reducing the degree of human contact with the voting process reduces fraud. Faster election returns are another attribute commonly associated with election automation.. However, that automation reduces human contact with the voting process is a dubious assumption. The labor required creating, installing, maintaining, and repair, if necessary, the required software and hardware is not factored into these calculations, yet these activities constitute significant human intervention, and therefore opportunities for fraud. Thus, creating speculations that automated election would be impossible.

The Winning Bidder

THE COMMISSION on Elections (Comelec) en banc, through a resolution, has awarded the election automation contract to Total Information Management (TIM)/Smartmatic, finally ending speculation that next year’s polls would again be held via the fraud-prone manual method.
Smartmatic’s bid was P7.2 billion for 82,000 machines covering 80 precincts nationwide — reduced from 200,000 due to the "clustering" of precincts — that would service about 45 million voters as of last count during the 2007 midterm elections But a bombshell was dropped when the local partner, Total Information Management Corp (TIM), announced its withdrawal from its partnership with Smartmatic International Inc. They are pulling out of the P11.3-billion project. Due to the withdrawal, the possibility of a manual election increased further, as Smartmatic will not have any local partner in handling the project.

Comelec Disappointments

The poll chief said it is frustrating to know that TIM is seemingly putting “personal interest” ahead of a matter of national importance. Melo asserted that the Comelec would not allow TIM to walk away easily. Melo said they are set to look at the names behind TIM to see if these people may have been influenced by groups who are against automated elections. The Netherlands-based Smartmatic, meanwhile, remains hopeful that things will be resolved with their former partner. TIM officials have refused to comment despite repeated requests and attempts by Comelec-based reporters. (S. Fabunan)

Settlement has announced

It’s all about tokenism. The 60-40 joint venture basis in favor of TIM and the 90-10 working contribution. Became an issue. But basically the problem goes with the 60-40 issue. That was basically the problem we had. But everything had been discussed and it goes fine now according to Jose Mari Antuñez, head of local IT provider Total Information Management Corp. Before the two companies reconciled on Friday to undertake the P7.2 billion project for the Commission on Elections (Comelec), Smartmatic and TIM were squabbling over “risks and liabilities”—both financially and criminally, putting the program in jeopardy. But Smartmatic and TIM officials told the Senate that that they had patched up their differences and that they had agreed to a “neutral arbiter”—a Singaporean arbitration court—that would help resolve their conflict should they have another conflict.

Blown out of proportion

During the hearing, Melo rebuked Antuñez after the TIM president initially denied that TIM had pulled out from the project and that the issue had been “blown out of proportion.” Melo said that Antuñez went to him last week to tell him that “we have lost trust and confidence (with Smartmatic) and we’re withdrawing.” But Melo said he told Antuñez to fix the problem with Smartmatic and not go to him so he could be their “judge.” On questioning by Sen. Pia Cayetano, Antuñez admitted that his group and Smartmatic had “differences on risk and liability concerns” that were both “financial and criminal.” “But we have reconciled,” Antuñez said.

Token partner

It is prompted that TIM was just a “token partner.” And everything was all about tokenism. That everyone was just fooling themselves in the 60-40 percent venture when the fact is it’s not.

Conclusion:

The discourse surrounding automated elections clearly links technology to the empowerment of civil society. The claims made for poll automation suggest that it represents a solution for the Philippines’ perennial electoral problem — cheating — that, if implemented, would ensure that all votes are counted quickly and accurately. Yet while civil society is championed by technology in this account, the nature of the link between the two is such that civil society is effectively constrained in ways beneficial to the ruling class. Election automation acknowledges, and to a certain extent, addresses the concern of the middle class to develop a positive national identity, but it not does address the economic disparity that underwrites much of the fraud taking place at election time and which, in order to be overcome, would require a radical adjustment in the expectations of the ruling class. While we believed it would be the best solution, thus, making election automation our better hope to have a better electoral reform. AJA!!!!

References:
http://bayan-natin.blogspot.com/2009/06/philippines-2010-automated-election.html http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/1960/01/Hegemonic_work_of_automated_election_technology__final_.pdf http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20090707-214221/Smartmatic-TIM-assure-Senate-problem-settled