My thoughts in the coming automated election is a probability of automated election fraud. In our current situation, automated election fraud like manual election fraud can be divided into two parts:
1. Retail cheating in the counting and preparation of precinct election returns.
2. Wholesale fraud in the transmission and canvassing at the municipal, district, city and provincial levels.
In my observation, fraud does not happen at the national level since there are fewer numbers to transmit and canvass, and there are many eyes focused on the process.
I will start discussing on how fraud can be done on the OMR (Optical Mark Reading) counting machines. Then we will discuss how fraud can take place in transmission and canvassing.
The Comelec claims that we finally have clean and honest elections because the 2010 elections will be fully automated.
The old cheaters who are computer illiterate and not in Comelec or with the automated system vendor may indeed find that their old tricks will no longer work.
Misreading and manual tampering of ERs (Election Returns) and COCs (Certificate of Canvass) will no longer be possible.
Now, the beauty of the old system of writing names of candidates voted for, public reading of votes in front of watchers and citizens, tallying and manual preparation of election returns was that it was visible (transparent).
At times there could have been fraud. But it was visible. Maybe sometimes due to guns and goons, people would just keep quiet.
In the new OMR system, voters will feed the ballot into the machine the next thing they will see is the printed election return. Whether their votes were properly counted they will not know.
Transparency at the precinct level is gone. Fraud can take place and the voters and watchers at the precinct will not know if fraud has taken place.
Even if the Comelec claims that the AES (automated election system) cannot be hacked and that the source code will be open for inspection, they do not make automated elections safe from fraud.
The Random House Encyclopedia defines hacking as unauthorized access to a computer, either for fun or for malicious or fraudulent purposes.
Hackers generally use microcomputers and telephone lines to obtain access.
In computing, the term is used in a wider sense to mean using software for enjoyment or self-education, not necessarily involving unauthorized access.
Hacking is not the problem and, therefore, spending time and money to prevent hacking is not very useful.
If only outsiders would rob you in your home then having grilled windows, special locks, alarms, etc. will ensure your safety. But if you live in the company of thieves, you can still be robbed. That is what the police refer to as an “inside job.
The greatest danger of fraud in the 2010 computerized elections will come from insiders in Comelec and computer vendors, not from outsiders.
In the old manual system, the hard copy of the precinct ERs were brought to the municipality to be read and entered in the statement of votes, which was visible to watchers. Watchers could compare the statement of votes with their own copies of the ER. Before the ER was read and added to the statement of votes, the authenticity of the ER was first verified.
This process took time and caused delays when lawyers argued, but at least citizens could see what was going on, hopefully make sure that votes were properly canvassed and at the very least be aware that frauds had taken place.
The Comelec AES has no safeguards against insider-initiated fraud. It assumes that the Comelec and the vendor officials, managers and staff are absolutely honest. It assumes that an automated system will not commit mistakes or fraud.
In the Comelec system, massive fraud can take place, but it will not be discovered until after the beneficiaries of fraud have been proclaimed.
Good luck with the election protests to the real winners who were defrauded!
Reference:
http://inquirer.net/
Mood's In ControlSaturday, July 18, 2009
Posted by ♪_TARIZTA_♪ at 4:28 AM
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