Sunday, August 17, 2008

Cover Story

Armm elections 2008: Cheating fields no more?
By Ben Jason O. Tesiorna

THE Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm) is infamous for election cheating. In fact, it's called the "cheating fields of the Philippines". If a candidate who's running for a national position is hell bent on winning, all he or she has to do is "seek" the votes from Armm and, voila, you are a sure winner.

In fact, one senator is dubbed as the "senator from Maguindanao" for garnering votes more than the number of actual voters in the province in the 2007 elections.

But the August 11, 2008 Armm elections is unlike any other elections in the history of the region and even the country. For one, it is the first-ever automated election in the country's history. Second it achieved the fastest canvassing ever, from the usual three weeks counting of ballots, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) finished it up in three days.

Thanks to the electronic voting machines like the optical mark reader and the direct recording electronic system that made voting in Armm a breeze.

Maguindanao Representative Simeon Datumanong expressed satisfaction on the automated election, saying it usually took him three to five minutes to cast his vote in the manual elections. But with the automation, Datumanong said it just took him one and a half minutes from registering to the actual voting.

Akbayan partylist Representative Etta Rosales, author of the automation law in the House of Representatives, was also satisfied with how the automated election erased the bad image of elections in the Armm. She said Monday's election proved to be credible and "Garci-free".

But is it really?

In an interview with Comelec spokesman James Jimenez at the Shariff Ampatuan Central Elementary School in Shariff Aguak town on the day of the elections, he said the automated election system could not be easily tampered or manipulated by anybody.

He said even the reported ballot-snatching in Basilan on that day would have no effect at all on the outcome of the election there, as the ballots could not be read by other machines except for the specific machine assigned at a specific area.

Comelec officials said human intervention in the Armm election was remarkably reduced, thus the chance of cheating has also lessened.

In my observation with the voting process, after the registration, the voter goes directly to the voting machine and presses the picture with name of the candidates they wanted to vote for. After filling all the slots, the name of candidates the voter voted for are automatically printed on a thermal paper.

The voter gets the paper and deposits it in the ballot box. Comelec officials said computer stores in its memory all of the data inputted by the voters. The results are then transmitted electronically to Comelec's data center for canvassing.

In other areas where there are no electronic voting machines, the voter is given a paper where chosen candidates' names are merely shaded by the voter. The filled-up ballot is meanwhile fed to the optical reading machine, which reads about 80-100 ballots per minute.

In whichever way one looks at the automated election, it is evident that not only is it faster but more credible as well.

Armm Governor Datu Zaldy Ampatuan said they hope to erase the bad image of his region during election. The governor said automated election must also be implemented in the coming 2010 presidential elections so as to erase all doubts of massive cheating in every election.

Representative Rosales said the first-ever automated election has achieved its three purposes:

1. Proving to Filipinos that Bangsamoro people know what democracy is and knows how to exercise them;

2. Automation is the first step to peace in Mindanao;

3. It's a step towards a more credible 2010 election

Hakot System

The partylist representative, however, said there are still some aspects in this election that needs improvement. One, she said, is for Comelec to provide free transportation for voters who live far away from their polling precincts.

On our way to Shariff Aguak from Cotabato City, we personally saw truckloads of people on their way to vote. When asked what precinct and school they are voting at, most of them said they don't know and that they were merely told to board the truck.

Second, Comelec must clean the registered voters list. Representative Rosales said it is important for the RVL to be clean of ghost and flying voters so that future elections would be more credible and truthful. Rosales said she could still see some very young people who are obviously not yet on their voting age and yet have cast their votes in this year's election.

This reporter happens to see one youth who looks like 14 years old but when asked of his age said he is already 21 years old.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), in its website www.luwaran.com, said the hakot system went as far as South Cotabato. Thousands of T'bolis from Lake Sebu in South Cotabato were allegedly hauled by trucks and brought to Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao where they voted in various polling centers in Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Mamasapanu, and Shariff Aguak.

Each was allegedly paid P200, excluding food and drink. Another voter said the use of computers in the elections "will give cheaters much better ways to cheat". He said that as long as a voter has identification card (ID), the computers would not distinguish flying voter from a genuine registered voter.

This testimony was corroborated by several schoolteachers who served in Datu Piang in Maguindanao, saying voters in one precinct can vote in another precinct provided they have Ids.

In its report Thursday, the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel) said that though automation has improved the canvassing, old problems like vote-buying, ballot-snatching, the use of flying voters, multiple voting and proxy voting by minors are still in abundance.

Anfrel said the electronic system could not eliminate many forms of electoral fraud and offenses. These problems, it said, had already been documented in past elections, but they still persisted.

"But the new systems were certainly a welcome improvement over the manual systems in previous elections," Anfrel said in a statement.

Anfrel has been observing the Armm polls for the past decade and has deployed 22 foreign volunteers to monitor the balloting in 443 precincts.

In a press briefing, Anfrel showed photographs of boys, who appeared to be below 18 years old, voting in the precincts. This practice was observed in the provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Lanao del Sur.

"Part of the reason the voter turnout was high was because there were many under-aged voters," Somsri Hananuntasuk, Anfrel executive director, said.

At a forum held in Quezon City, representatives of the Citizens Coalition for Armm Electoral Reforms (Citizens Care) Inc. and the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente) said computerization "reduced chances of wholesale fraud" but could not check instances of cheating at the voting stage.

"Automation did not address the opportunities for ballot substitution or ballot-snatching. If this will be used as a gauge for the 2010 automated elections, they (government officials) should look at the impact of the total election process," Lente lawyer Louie Guia said in a report.

Many voters did not know how to use the voting machines properly and that the board of election inspectors (BEIs) coached them on whom to vote for. Anfrel said this assistance "is highly susceptible to abuse by unauthorized persons". Anfrel urged the Comelec to strengthen voters' education on the new technologies.

The pre-printed ballots used in the OMR system were an improvement in the past practice of writing down the name of the candidate. However, this system still allows human intervention. The system still requires ballot papers, which leave greater potential for cheating, Anfrel said.

Lente's Guia said the "flying voter system" remained because the manual process was not replaced.

"It is more difficult to verify now because voters only shaded the ballots. Handwriting can no longer be compared. What would the machines be counting? They are presumably ballots cast by the voters, but are we sure? We wouldn't really know," Guia said.

"It's the same old story as far as the casting of votes is concerned -- Automation did not solve the casting of votes stage," he added.

Senator Richard Gordon Thursday filed a resolution urging the Comelec to start preparations for the full automation of the 2010 elections.

In Senate Resolution 567, Gordon said that while there were minor problems in the automated system, the Comelec could fine-tune these for smooth nationwide automated elections in two years.

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