hat perplexes is the blind desire of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and even poll watchers to have automated elections in 2010, to the point of pronouncing that it would be the full partner of Smartmatic International, despite this being an illegal move.
Given the conditions of Smartmatic, in which it will have total control of the entire automated process, just what would the role of Comelec be, if not for it to play a very, very minor role in the polls.
Since Smartmatic, based on the reported conditions, wants to be the sole decision-maker in the disbursement of monies in cases where there exists a dispute, obviously then, even as the partners have kissed and made up, Comelec will have a very minimal role to play in the 2010 polls, such as being the financier of the consortium, while just accepting as gospel truth whatever the Smartmatic-TIM says.
Too many times, the danger of massive electoral fraud through automated polls is real, especially since security matters are left to Smartmatic, which is much too dangerous. Even as a consortium, the conduct of the polls will still be left to this partnership.
A report stated that "the proprietary security and counting software will not be housed and secured inside the machines, but contained in a removable memory card that would be in the custody of the members of the Board of Election inspectors," despite the fact that many of the BoE officers are known to be cheating operators.
This issue was also taken up during Tuesday’s Senate hearing where it was admitted that if a machine breaks down, another machine nearest to the broken machine would be utilized, with the memory card data reconfigured to fit the machine’s replacement.
What this means is that not only would the BoE inspectors now be given free access to memory cards which can be configured for cheating purposes, but that even Smartmatic-TIM — along with its partner, a presidential crony — can easily change the data and the count itself. And the Filipino people will not have any way of checking the fraud.
Comelec officials and poll watchers, along with the pro-automation forces, to this day, have not in any way, come up with solid reasons on why and how cheating cannot occur with automated polls.
All they do is claim that poll automation must be done because the law says so and that cheating will be eliminated since poll automation will make past electoral frauds a thing of the past.
These are certainly not the reasons massive electronic cheating cannot occur. And the reason poll officials and the watchdogs can’t give the satisfactory answer is that they just take as gospel truth whatever Smartmatic says, without even doing the necessary due diligence.
None of these issues, such as the non-secure memory card issue — would have been brought out publicly, were it not for that Senate hearing, where objections from senators were raised. And this was not even questioned by Comelec and the poll watchdogs, mainly because they merely took the word of the bidder. And yet, these are the same groups that claim poll automation will make electoral fraud a thing of the past.
Worse, these are the same clueless groups that are all out for Comelec to partner Smartmatic Barbados in the poll automation project, the moment Total Information Management (TIM) cuts off from the partnership. Now that the two partners have kissed and made up, Comelec is back again to leaving everything with the consortium--and probably putting up an even bigger payment for the partners to kiss and make up.
It has long been noted that Comelec and even the poll wachdogs favored Smartmatic, systematically disqualifying all bidders, to enable this firm whose investors are not even known to Filipinos, nor researched on, to win the bid.
And when there was a falling out between partners, just what did Comelec, the watchdogs and even Malacañang, do, if not threaten to file charges against TIM, even when charges should be filed against both TIM and Smartmatic.
It did not escape notice either that Smartmatic will not be charged at all, since Comelec now wants to be Smartmatic’s partner, with these poll officials claiming that this is legal. So who says it is legal, Comelec or the Supreme Court?
But for all Comelec’s push to have poll automations which will be conducted by Smartmatic, it does make too many wonder: What’s in it for the Comelec and Malacañang?
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