Sunday, 12 February 2012
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Lessons from the Philippines’ first e-election
Although the US$155 million project was fraught with technical difficulties and controversy, the Philippines’ first computerised election has been hailed an historic success. FutureGov caught up with the Chairman of the Advisory Council for the Commission on Elections, Ray Roxas-Chua, to ask how Asia’s first democracy could go one better next time round.
“The election has been a fantastic learning experience”, said Chua. The automated election system was “a good fit for the Philippines in terms cultural adaptability, auditability and providing a backup mechanism for machine failure.”
However, Chua, who is Chairman of the Commission on Information & Communication Technology (CICT), suggested that changes need to be made to ensure the next elections run smoother.
Operations and testing need to start earlier – less than a week before the elections, 76,000 flash cards used to read ballots and store voting data had to be recalled from voting machines positioned at 36,000 polling stations dotted across the archipelago.
“A major glitch involving the configuration of memory cards occurred a week before the elections, which resulted in a mad scramble by the vendor to rectify it and an erosion in the confidence of the public,” Chua recalled. “The final testing and sealing should probably be done more than a week before the elections.”
Another problem was transmission coverage. “Approximately 10 per cent of precincts did not have transmission coverage and had to resort to contingency measures (i.e. transportation of memory cards). COMELEC should work with the telecom/satellite operators to ensure all precincts have coverage in the next election,” Chua noted.
Changes to the canvassing and consolidation system (CCS) are also necessary, he suggested. “The CCS was spread out across all the national/provincial/municipal canvassing centers with each canvassing centre having a standalone CCS terminal. I believe the CCS should be centralised into one server and the canvassing centres should simply be accessing the central CCS server to ensure everyone is working with just one set of data.”
Cheating was reduced at this election - but was not eliminated. More widespread use of biometric technology could reduce cheating further, Chua noted. “Some forms of cheating related to identity verification were still prevalent, such as flying voters, deceased voters, and ballot stuffing, which cannot be prevented by automation. Congress should pass a law making biometric registration mandatory, so COMELEC can implement an electronic identity verification system in the next election.”
The ballot itself needs to be rethought, said Chua. “The ballot was 25 inches long, primarily because of the 187 party list candidates, from which the voter would only choose one. This posed logistic and privacy challenges that could have been avoided by using a numerical system instead of listing the names of all 187 candidates.”
Even if these improvements are made, Chua said that automation will always have its detractors.
“Politicians who know how to cheat in the manual system will always prefer the manual system until they figure out how to cheat the automated system. Losing candidates will continue to attack the system to give themselves a basis for protesting the results. Election operators who make a living out of rigging elections and election lawyers who make a living out of election protests will also prefer the manual system. IT professionals who push their own systems will continue to criticise the current system so their own system can be considered.”
However, he added: “I believe the Filipino people have embraced the automated way, so these detractors will have a difficult time pushing for a return to manual.”
Chua, who is a presidential appointee at the CICT, sees his term end when current President Gloria Arroyo steps down at the end of this month (30th June 2010). Meanwhile, the future of the CICT - and the future of government IT in the Philippines - remains uncertain.
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