We Deserver Better _ Gus Lagman

Automation of

Elections

Ano ba talaga ito?

Agenda

Why we need to automate

elections

The manual election system

Alternative solutions

Why do we need to automate elections

Process is too long. It takes 25-40

days before national positions can be

proclaimed.

To eliminate wholesale cheating, incl.

DAGDAG-BAWAS

The Manual Election

System

Basic Election-related Data

83 Provinces

200 Congressional Districts

1,600 Cities and Municipalities

40,000 Barangays

250,000 precincts

40M+ voters

Elective Positions

National Positions

President

Vice-President

24 Senators (12 elected/3 years)

Party List

Local Positions

Congressman

Governor

Vice-Governor

Provincial Board

Mayor

Vice-Mayor

Councilors

Definition of Terms

BEI - Board of Election Inspectors (250,000)

CMBOC - City/Municipal Board of Canvassers (1,600)

PBOC - Provincial/District Board of Canvassers (200)

NBOC - National Board of Canvassers (Comelec/Congress)

ER - Election Returns

SOV - Statement of Votes

COC - Certificate of Canvass

The Manual Election System

1. Ballots tallied by BEI in each precinct and ERs prepared

2. BEIs bring ERs to CMBOCs

3. CMBOCs canvass ERs and prepare SOVs and COCs; bring them to PBOCs

4. PBOCs canvass COCs and prepare provincial

COCs and SOVs; bring them to NBOC

5. NBOC (Comelec) canvasses COCs; Congress canvasses Pres/VP COCs

Manual Tallying/Canvassing

Time Line

10 days 20 30 40

CITY / MUNICIPAL, PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL CANVASSING (25

– 40 DAYS)PRECINCTTALLYING

5-12 hrs

Given the above time line, it becomes obvious, which phase of the

election process should be automated.

So now, we want to apply technology in our elections ...

1. to speed up the process and to be able

to proclaim the winning candidates

earlier;

2. to minimize, if not eliminate, cheating;

Ahh … but we have added a third ...

3. to make the election process

transparent to the public

Election processes that can be

automated

Voters list

Voting

Tallying

Canvassing

Reporting

In automating elections, two issues immediately come to mind:

How do we secure the system?

Which technology should we adopt?

Two ways of securing a system

Fence it in very tightly so no

intrusion can ever occur

(security by obscurity).

However, implementor must

prove to all interested

parties that system is indeed

extremely secure.

Not easy to convince all;

there will always be

doubters.

Secure the system, but make a copy of all software and data (read only) accessible to all interested parties and to the public.

Proof of veracity and accuracy

of results becomes automatic.

We favor this because

it is the transparent

alternative.

Features of an ideal automated

election system for the Philippines

Automates canvassing

Tight security measures

All steps transparent to the voting public

Software used available to the public

Digital counts and results, in all steps, available to the public (any one can do his own tabulation)

Results quickly verifiable all the way to original source documents

Cost-effective (P4-8 billion, depending on the solution)

Minimum or no training required for >40M voters

Minimum or no storage concerns after each election process

Not dependent on the trustworthiness of the implementors

Alternative election automation

technologies

1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) System – “touch-screen”

2. OES (Open Election System) - manual voting & counting, and automated canvassing

PC-based data encoding of ERs

3. OES-OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) System – pre-printed ballots, read by OMRs at the voting centers (schools)

Option 1: Direct Recording

Electronic System1. 2-4 Units per

precinct

2. Touch screen, mouse, or keyboard

3. Voter’s choices printed for audit purposes

4. At end of voting (3:00pm), ER is printed

5. ER transmitted to CMBOC and NBOC

6. NBOC transmits data to interested parties

7. CMBOC produces SOV and COC; transmits to PBOC

8. PBOC produces SOV and COC; transmits to NBOC

9. NBOC produces SOV and COC

55

4

3

7 8

6

9

Direct Recording Electronic System

Instantaneous tally of votes at precinct level

If all precincts connected, almost instantaneous canvass at City/Mun., Prov., & Natl. levels; ergo, theoretically, national results known 1 hr. after close of voting

Less work for BEI

With one printer per precinct, printing of 30 copies of ER at precincts is easy

No ballot box snatching

Not transparent. Voters will distrust vote-counting that they did not see (a big issue in the US)

Cost prohibitive, estimated at P15-20B (some est. >P30B)

Logistics can be a nightmare (750K units to 250K locations)

Thousands of technical people req’d (but where to deploy?)

BEI training staggering

40 Million voters to be trained

Where online connection is unavailable, difficult to secure electronic media (CDs)

After each election, storage of 750K units is major concern

PROs CONs

But … wasn’t the automation of the last ARMM election successful?

From Dr. Aviel Rubin’s book, “Brave New Ballot”

“Past performance is no guarantee of

future results, especially when it comes to

security.”

“Success on a small scale does not

guarantee success once the scale of a

project is enlarged.”

Besides (and very few people realize this), …

The ARMM election is a non-event!

These statements are quite disturbing

"DRE was well-received but was seen by

some as too expensive. OMR was cheaper

but it still requires human intervention."

"DRE is suited for areas where there is

good infrastructure including electricity and

connectivity. OMR is more suitable for rural

areas where infrastructure isn't that

reliable."

TransparentElections.org


We are NOT vendors of election systems

We are a team of similarly-minded IT

practitioners who have implemented

election-related projects in the past, using ICT

Option 2: Open Election System PC Encoding

1. Votes cast & tallied as in manual voting

2. ERs brought to school encoding (PC) center

3. ERs validated then posted on the web w/ BEIs digital signature

4. CMBOC will access database, produce SOV, COC

5. All interested parties may access and process the data by themselves

6. All interested parties can send SMS to watchers to verify figures

7. PBOCs access DB; produce Prov SOVs and COCs

8. NBOC accesses DB for final results

CITY/MUNICIPAL

BOARD OF CANVASSERS

PROVINCIAL

BOARD OF CANVASSERS

NATIONAL

BOARD OF CANVASSERS

DOMINANT

PARTY

DOMINANT

OPPOSITION

CITIZENS

ARM

MEDIA &

OTHERS

DOMINANT

PARTY

DOMINANT

OPPOSITION

CITIZENS

ARM

MEDIA &

OTHERS

VOTING CENTER

ENCODING CENTERPRECINCTS

Open Election System

Most transparent - voters and watchers observe tally at precinct level

No need for voter training

Once ER is encoded, result (web database) becomes accessible to the public

Cost affordable at about P2B (Comelec only buys PCs/servers)

PCs/servers can be passed on to DepEd after each election

No storage concerns, because machines can be passed on to DepEd

Ballot box snatching/switching will not affect results

Manual tallying is tedious

ERs will have to be encoded

Looking for tens of thousands of encoders is a challenge

Since it’s still manual tallying, public may think that election is not automated

PROs CONs

Open Election System OMR

1. Votes cast & tallied as in manual voting

2. ERs brought to school encoding (OMR) center

3. ERs validated then posted on the web w/ BEIs digital signature

4. CMBOC will access database, produce SOV, COC

5. All interested parties may access and process the data by themselves

6. All interested parties can send SMS to watchers to verify figures

7. PBOCs access DB; produce Prov SOVs and COCs

8. NBOC accesses DB for final results

CITY/MUNICIPAL

BOARD OF CANVASSERS

PROVINCIAL

BOARD OF CANVASSERS

NATIONAL

BOARD OF CANVASSERS

DOMINANT

PARTY

DOMINANT

OPPOSITION

CITIZENS

ARM

MEDIA &

OTHERS

DOMINANT

PARTY

DOMINANT

OPPOSITION

CITIZENS

ARM

MEDIA &

OTHERS

VOTING CENTER

OMR

PRECINCTS

Optical Mark Recognition

Ballots are pre-printed so voters simply mark choices

Voter training minimal, relative to DRE

Faster, because tally of votes automated

Less work for BEI at precinct level

Cost less than DRE; approx. P8B (using $2,000 OMRs)

Internal tallying. Voters won’t see and may not trust count

Wholesale cheating, usually possible only at canvassing level, can happen at precinct level

Sensitivity to external marks or smudges

Difficult to fairly resolve over-marked ballots

Easier to add to under-marked ballots

Need to store specialized OMR machines

PROs CONs

What does the OES Alternative need?

1. COMELEC’s approval of concept

2. COMELEC’s bidding out the development

of the system and computer programs

3. Making system/programs available to IT

community and to public

4. Adopting good contributions

5. Making the system available to all

interested parties, free of charge

Once the OES system has been developed, the COMELEC would need to …

Bid out the PCs, servers, (the inexpensive

OMRs), and the communications

requirements

Bid out the management and

implementation of the project

All 3 systems …

will speed up the process, in varying

degrees

will minimize cheating, in varying degrees

but only OES will be transparent to the voting public

Now, you can make an

informed choice of

which solution to

support.

Should you believe (passionately, we hope), that OES is the right election system for the Philippines, then please …

… join us in convincing the COMELEC, its

Advisory Council, and Congress to adopt

OES; and

… sign up to be a member of


If we can’t see it,

we can’t trust it!


Thank you!

Education

We Deserver Better _ Gus Lagman