Vote protection: Reengineer election results processing

A LOT of hearings of the joint congressional oversight committee (JCOC) on the automated election system (AES) and meetings with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) took up that Meet Me Room (MMR) sans electronic transmission of election results. Past articles in this column explained why outsourcing of democratic processing (Nov. 3, 2021) poses a critical risk on the responsibilities of the Comelec and why there is a need to simplify transmission of election results for transparent elections (July 14, 2021).

Lately, citizens' arms/election watchdogs (CA/WD), including AES Watch, have been pondering the reengineering and further simplification of electronic transmission by purely adopting the ladderized transmission literally based on the Omnibus Election Code (OEC) or Batas Pambansa 881, wherein canvassing goes through the municipal, city and provincial board of canvassers. That means, the election returns (ERs) shall be digitally signed and electronically transmitted to the municipal/city board of canvassing (M/CBOC) without transmitting to the central server in a data center (CS-DC); the certificates of canvass (COCs) of M/CBOC shall also be digitally signed and electronically transmitted to the provincial board of canvassing (PBOC) and no transmission to CS-DC; the PBOC' COC shall also be transmitted to the national boards of canvassing (NBOC) at the PICC and Batasan Pambansa and no transmission to CS-DC; and direct and separate electronic transmissions to dominant majority and minority parties, citizens' arms, and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) without passing through the transparency server (TS). This setup simplifies the electronic transmission, lessens the volume of election results transmission, eliminates the CS-DS and the TS as these are not even provided in Republic Act 9369, eliminates the MMR, eliminates possible hidden servers and eliminates non-organic personnel of Comelec running the CS-DC.