Emmanuel Etchon BSCS1A
h2o-khto2010- I’m glad to share w/you my knowledge about about the poll automated machine, and what
will be the future that waits in our country, of course on our selves too. For me it’s very interesting to talk about,
so here’s the inforamtion about poll automated machine, so try it you’ll love it!!
For the first time in Philippine history, the country will be using an automated poll machine for a quick, easy, and transparent counting that will minimize fraud. For the past elections of manual voting, several problems were encountered such as slow results of vote, “Dagdag-Bawas scheme” and vote buying. Things like these become the reason for the adaptation of an automated election in Philippines.
Miagao’s local election officer, Jessie Borro, said that there is no much problem in the use of the automated poll machine. Borro pointed out that if ever there would be a problem, it will not be in the voting process but within the voter’s themselves.
For the past months since the consortium of Smartmatic-TIM won the Philippine election automation project, questions and discussions have been raised about the system as well as the machine itself. While many already concluded that the machines are susceptible to hacking and vote modifications, Smartmatic-TIM have continuously denied such allegations and defended that their system are not prone to hacking.
Although these new system will ensure a quick election result, there are problems that I would like to address. First, in the world of illusion and cyber security, it is widely acknowledged that nothing is impossible and everything could be hacked anytime. With extreme planning and knowledge about hacking of the system, one can do the hacking and go away with it without being identified. Next is, the votes shaded in the Optical Mark Recognition ballot are easily exposed to tampering and ballots are vulnerable to advance shading which can be done by a single person. Such tampering of ballots would be very difficult to trace or determine.
May it be manual or automated, complications in election is inevitable. I guess it will all boil down on how Filipinos will play the game. Honesty — such an easy word but seems the hardest thing to do. It is the only key if we really want a clean and successful election.
PHILIPPINE NEWS SERVICE — BOTHERED by the slow count of votes cast in the May 14 elections, Malacañang yesterday called on all stakeholders in the political process to put in place an automated election system to replace the Philippines’ century-old method of manual voting and counting.
Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said the Arroyo administration was determined to see an automated system installed in time for the 2010 presidential election.
“If we are to exercise political will, three years is sufficient time for electoral reforms,” Bunye said. “Yet, for this miracle of modernization to take place, we need to act as one nation committed to elevating its electoral system to a state-of-the- art democratic exercise.”
Congress passed the Automated Electoral System Act, which was signed by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo into law early this year.
Under this law, automated voting was given a P2.6-billion fund this year, and automation was to be implemented in two provinces and two cities each in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
But the Commission on Elections failed to implement the automation scheme because the law was passed too late.
Two House members echoed the call, and asked the election commission to start planning for full computerization of the 2010 election to hasten the proclamation of poll winners.
“The automated machine cannot detect flying voters or multiple registrations of voters. The teachers manning the voting may check flying voters through the pictures of list of voters and the voters who will cast their ballots on election day,” he said.
In Davao City, groups concerned with the questionable processing of the automated election system (AES) also urged the Comelec to release the source code that is allegedly fraught with unreliable vote counting structure.
Rona Castillo, a fellow of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), bared in a press briefing Thursday that the 82,000 sets of poll machines have not yet undergone testing nor have arrived on time for such purpose.
Tolentino of the Comelec explained that the automated machine is not equipped with a gadget or software to detect flying voters, although a bill is pending in Congress to enable a verification of voters through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS).
OPINION:
The poll automated machine has advantage and disadvantages sides. The advantage of this machine is the counting system is faster, and the the votes will be counted orderly. The disadvantages of automated machine is, it is very sensitive for example if the paper is not fully shaded, the machine will not count it or the paper is stained it also not counted. the data that stored in the machine can rob by tose people who has a knowledge about computer and that
specific machine, the last one the data can be change, for example the votes for Manny Villar is only 1,234,567 and then the hacker will change it into 2,000,000 votes. Guys, the key for the honest election is to be honest in our selves first
so start to change your heart now as an honest person.
