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By Lakambini A. Sitoy
, Reporter
Third of four parts
Despite an allotment of more than P1 billion and
years of preparation, the 2004 national elections were still not
computerized. The contract that would have given the country an
automated voting system was annulled by the Supreme Court primarily
for violations of the Commission on Elections’ bidding procedures.
Papers submitted to the Comelec were inadequate proof of the
existence of the Mega Pacific Consortium. Nonetheless the Bids and
Awards Committee decided the consortium was eligible.
What if the bidding procedure had been
completely aboveboard: was the award of the contract to Mega Pacific
Consortium justified by the quality of the automatic counting
machines the group had to offer?
The Comelec required its prospective suppliers
to submit a certified accuracy rating from the Department of Science
and Technology for each model of counting machine and canvassing
system the suppliers proposed.
The department was tasked with finding whether
the machines would function accurately under various working
conditions.
The key requirements were vote counting
accuracy, consolidation/canvassing accuracy, ballot counting speed,
security features for both the hardware and the software, and system
reliability.
Mandatory and optional features
Republic Act 8436, the law authorizing the
Comelec to use an automated election system, had laid down its
mandatory features in its Section 7. These were:
1. The use of appropriate ballots
2. A stand-alone machine that could count votes
and an automated system that could consolidate results immediately
3. With provisions for audit trails
4. Requiring minimum human intervention
5. With adequate safeguards and security
measures
The law also laid down 23 features that the
system must have “as far as practicable.”
These were:
1. It must be user-friendly and need not require
computer-literate operators
2. The machine security must be built-in and
multilayer existent on hardware and software with minimum human
intervention using latest technology like the encrypted coding
system
3. The security key control must be embedded
inside the machine sealed against human intervention
4. The Optical Mark Reader (OMR) must have a
built-in printer for numbering the counted ballots and for printing
the individual precinct number on the counted ballots
5. The ballot paper for the OMR counting machine
must be of the quality that passed the international standard like
ISO-1831, JIS-X 9004 or its equivalent for optical character
recognition
6. The ballot feeder must be automatic
7. The machine must be able to count from 100 to
150 ballots per minute
8. The counting machine must be able to detect
fake or counterfeit ballots and must have a fake ballot rejector
9. The counting machine must be able to detect
and reject previously counted ballots to prevent duplication
10. The counting machine must have the
capability to recognize the ballot’s individual precinct and city
or municipality before counting or consolidating the votes
11. The System must have a printer that has the
capacity to print in one stroke or operation seven copies (original
plus six copies) of the consolidated reports on carbonless paper
12. The printer must have at least 128 kilobytes
of Random Access Memory to facilitate the expeditious processing of
the printing of the consolidated reports
13. The machine must have a built-in floppy disk
drive in order to save the processed data on a diskette
14. The machine must also have a built-in hard
disk to store the counted and consolidated data for future printout
and verification
15. The machine must be temperature-resistant
and rustproof
16. The lens of the Optical Mark Reader must
have a self-cleaning device
17. The machine must not be capable of being
connected to external computer peripherals for the process of vote
consolidation
18. The machine must have an uninterrupted power
supply
19. The machine must be accompanied with
operating manuals that will guide the personnel of the Comelec on
the proper use and maintenance of the machine
20. It must be so designed and built that
add-ons may immediately be incorporated into the System at minimum
expense
21. It must provide the shortest time needed to
complete the counting of votes and canvassing of the results of the
election
22. The machine must be able to generate
consolidated reports like the election return, statement of votes
and certificate of votes at different levels
23. The accuracy of the count must be
guaranteed, the margin of error must be disclosed and backed by
warranty under such terms as may be determined by the Commission
The extreme specificity of the law was essential
to avert, as much as possible, any suspicion of election fraud.
Private organizations set up expressly to watch
out for wrongdoing during American elections have long been critical
of automated voting and counting. Among their contentions are that
American touch-screen/electronic voting machines leave no paper
trail for verification and cannot produce a reliable recount.
They have also asserted that politicians backing
electronic voting have interests in the manufacturers of e-voting
machines.
One such watchdog is the Verified Voting
Foundation Inc. An article by Mark Llewellyn Biddle on its website
alleges that Election.Com, the US company with which Mega Pacific
eSolutions Inc. had a “teaming agreement,” had encountered
problems during an election in Canada.
“The company contracted to provide online
Internet voting for the National Democratic Party in 2003, but
hackers paralyzed the central computer and disrupted voting,”
Biddle said. “The security and accuracy of election.com’s voting
software has since come under attack by Canadian voters who also
challenged the ballotless software.”
Hence it was necessary that the technology
adopted by the Comelec be above reproach.
Following the submission of the two bids on
March 10, 2003, the Department of Science and Technology submitted
the machines and software proposed by Mega Pacific and Total
Information Management to the same tests.
The Technical Working Group of the Bids and
Awards Committee also performed a series of tests, separate from
those of the department. The results are now in the custody of the
Comelec. Calls made to the offices of the Comelec in an effort to
get copies were not returned.
Rolando T. Viloria, an engineer, headed the
department’s technical evaluation committee. He was and remains
chair of the department’s Metals Industry Research and Development
Center and took charge of several more tests of the automatic
counting machines in question, which lasted to the end of 2003.
The results of the initial tests identified 27
key areas that the bidders were required to pass. These areas
touched on the feasibility of both the machines and the programs
required to run them.
According to the report of the Comelec’s Bids
and Awards Committee, Viloria told that body, in the afternoon of
April 15, 2003, that “the result of the tests [of] the two
counting machines of TIM [Total Information Management] contains
substantial errors that may lead to the failure of these machines .
. . .”
Viloria’s statement seems to refer to errors
in the results of the tests, implying problems with the testing
procedure. Indeed, he did recommend a retesting of the TIM machines.
Still, his words were apparently taken as a judgment of inferiority.
This verbal opinion was apparently what prompted
the Bids and Awards Committee to endorse Mega Pacific in an oral
report at an en banc Comelec meeting that day. The Comelec awarded
the contract to Mega Pacific Consortium, though it would be nearly a
week before the committee submitted a formal written report on April
21, 2003.
According to the report, in the evaluation done
by the committee’s Technical Working Group, both bidders got some
“failed marks.”
“In general,” the report reads, “the
‘failed marks’ of Total Information Management … affect the
counting machine itself which are material, constituting
noncompliance [with] the request for proposal. On the other hand,
the ‘failed marks’ of Mega Pacific are mere formalities on
certain documentary requirements which the [Bids and Awards
Committee] may waive as clearly indicated in the invitation to
bid.”
“In the DOST test,” the report went on,
“TIM obtained 12 failed marks and mostly attributed to the
counting machine itself as stated earlier. These are requirements of
the request for proposal and [cannot be disregarded)]”
“Mega Pacific failed in eight items; however
these are mostly on the software which can be corrected by
reprogramming the software . . .”
The DOST said it would have to retest TIM’s
machines, but using different parameters, there being two different
machines tested. One test was to see if previously read ballots
would be read again. The other would be for other features, such as
two-sided ballots. The DOST report would come after Holy Week, or
the 21st of April at the earliest.
The Bids and Awards Committee noted that the
machine and software to be retested could not be considered the
same, because those were submitted in the technical proposal, but
may be considered an enhancement.
(To be continued)
Part 1 |Part
2 |Part 4 |
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