Quality of the 2013 Elections (2)

20 May 2013

Mekaniko

By Jaime T. Lopez, III

sl3.mekaniko@gmail.com

Quality of the 2013 Elections (2)

As mentioned in my last column (PJ, 17May’13) I had the chance to exchange views last election day with some of my town mates regarding the possible impact of the recent elections on the future of the country, and I for one view it as dependent on the quality of the elected officials which would in turn be dependent on the interplay among at least four factors, namely: the quality of the candidates, the quality of the campaign, the quality of the voting system, and the quality of the voters.

To my mind there has been no significant improvement with respect to the quality of the candidates since this election season’s crop is as usual dominated by dynasts and dynast “wannabees”, as well as persons who are objectionable, of questionable qualifications, or of dubious character. Candidates seem to be drafted, once again, primarily on the basis of “winability” which perhaps added to the electorate’s frustrations that caused 25% of the 52 million registered voters to once more boycott this year’s polls.

The quality of the campaign seems to have taken off to a good start with the rules set by the
Comelec which to my mind would level the election playing field. However, the effectiveness these rules (e.g. limits on the sizes of posters and tarpaulin banners and the sites where they can be posted, limits on media exposure, disallowing the distribution of expensive promotion materials/cash as a check against vote buying, ban on massive cash withdrawals before the elections, etc.) fizzled out when some elements identified with the Catholic church decided not to comply and the halt orders were issued by the Supreme court against these Comelec issued rules. What resulted was a campaign season which to me (at the least) is as dirty and as lopsided in comparison with previous ones.

There was however a generally perceived improvement in the implementation of peace and order during the campaign period which as substantiated by DILG/PNP reports and data indicate a reduction this year in election related violence by 50% as compared to 2010, and by 69% versus 2007.

Despite the reported failure of the 200 PCOS machines (out of 78,000 fielded) and the reported 18,617 transmission failures, I would consider the quality of the voting system still good, and that it was able to deliver a credible election as well as results.

And why do I take this stand? Well because I’m aware of two such machine failures in my home town and I saw for myself how the mobile (motorcycle riding) PCOS technicians monitor the PCOS machines to address technical problems. I also was able to monitor how the board of election inspectors, or BEIs, in one clustered precinct addressed the case of a total failure of a machine to read ballots by securing all of the filled-up ballots and then using another PCOS machine to read them and print out election returns. This move, which I presume is part of a protocol prepared by the Comelec in addressing anticipated PCOS related problems, prevented the disenfranchisement of voters of that clustered precinct.

Also, the 200 defective machines account for only 0.26% of all the 78,000 that were deployed all over the country for the elections. And on the basis of the 40 million who voted, each machine would, on the average, account for about 513 votes…and for the 200 machines, about 100,000 votes. In terms of the national (or senatorial elections) this number would not change the winners nor their standings in the magic twelve. On the other hand, in terms of the local elections, I believe the impact of the 200 defective machines in terms of affecting the results of the election is nil, given that their incidence is widely dispersed over the country; and that the local election officials (as demonstrated earlier) have the technical infrastructure, as well as the needed procedural mechanisms to effectively troubleshoot problems resulting from defective PCOS machines.

The e-voting, I believe, has practically eliminated the problem with ballot switching, dagdag bawas, as well as inaccuracies/mistakes (accidental or intentional) in tallying during the canvassing of votes at the precinct and municipal level. However this caused the electoral combatants to shift to massive and rampant vote buying to skew the election results in their favor. And there have been reports of very creative variations in the techniques devised to execute vote buying, some of which are pre-shaded ballots in connivance with some BEIs, preventing known supporters of opponents from voting by marking their fingers with indelible ink in exchange for cash, substituting persons for voters who agreed to forego voting (also a form of flying voters), etc. Despite this however, I believe that the results that the voting system churns out reflects accurately the voters intentions since I’m sure that they are fully aware of what their ballots favor when they feed them to the PCOS machine which conducts the count without any human intervention.

I also think that the Comelec and the PPCRV came up with an effective check and balance mechanism in the canvassing and consolidation of the votes with the different manner they utilized in coming up with a final tally. PPCRV conducted an electronic tally based on electronic election returns transmitted to the, but the results of this this tally is compared with a parallel but manual tally where raw data from election returns are encoded and results consolidated. The Comelec on the other hand conducts its tally on the basis of the 304 certificates of canvass or COCs coming from the cities, provinces and overseas absentee voting centers. For a credible election result, the results of all the three canvassing and consolidating systems will have to be similar.

And with respect to the reported 18,617 transmission failures, I believe that these failures were due to incidental glitches in the transmission network and were not permanent failures which disenfranchised voters. The transmission of election results connected with these reported problems, I believe, were eventually done successfully because otherwise the results of the three parallel canvassing and consolidation of votes conducted by the Comelec and PPCRV would not have been similar and proclamations of winners would not have been made.

With respect to the quality of the voters, there seems to be two conflicting threads. I believe that a large portion of voters for the local elections seem to have been swayed by the vote buying deluge as discerned from the quality of local election winners in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The indication however varies when it comes to the national (or senatorial) election where the winners, except for a few, are by my measure qualified, competent and deserving of the title of Senator.

Due to space limitations, the last and 3^rd part of this article will be featured in a subsequent column. Meanwhile comments/reactions will be appreciated and can be sent through this writer’s email (sl3.mekaniko@gmail.com) or through this writer’s blog (http: //mekaniko-sl3. blogspot.com).