• Home
• GOVERNMENT CXO
• E-GOVERNMENT
• CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT
• TAX AND REVENUE MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT
• GREEN GOVERNMENT
• GOVERNMENT DATA MANAGEMENT
• GOVERNMENT SECURITY
• GOVERNMENT CLOUD
• GOVERNMENT ANALYTICS
• GOVERNMENT GIS
• CONNECTED GOVERNMENT
• DIGITAL INCLUSION
• EDUCATION IT
• HEALTHCARE IT

Central Government, Connected Government

Philippines confident in looming e-elections

By Robin Hicks | 29 March 2010

In an interview with FutureGov in Manila last week, Jose Melo, Chairman of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), said he is confident that the technology used for the Philippines’ first-ever computerised election will hold firm when 50 million Filipinos head for the polls on May 10th, and that much opposition to automation has come from those who “no longer know how to cheat.”

Photos

View photos

Related Articles

• The Philippines trains teachers in computer labs management
• Philippine city pilots e-service for inmates
• The Philippines to implement nationwide TeleHealth initiative
• The Philippines launches Poverty Reduction System

Related Categories

• CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
• CONNECTED GOVERNMENT

From this Section

• NEWS

A recent poll found that half of Filipino voters do not know how the voting machines work, and half expect people to take to the streets if the elections fail in under two months’ time – a seven per cent rise on a similar survey done in October last year. Some detractors have criticised the viability of the voting machines’ source code. Others say the machines can be too easily sabotaged.

However, Melo insisted that ongoing voter education programmes are “turning the tide” of the public perception of e-voting. “In some cases, opposition [to automation] comes from the simple fear of the new. That is understandable. There is also the more dangerous element who do not like the new system because they no longer know how to cheat it. Others want another system entirely so that they can profit from it,” said Melo.

There have also been fears that the precinct optical scanning machines will enable e-fraud. But opinion is shifting on this front too. COMELEC Director James Jimenez told FutureGov: “Until fairly recently there was the perception that automated elections meant automated cheating. We’ve moved on from that, and now 71 per cent of Filipinos think the vote will be credible and will accept the result without questioning it.”

Jimenez refuted suggestions that COMELEC’s voter education programme has left Filipinos inadequately prepared for the new system. “Yes, the stats show that many people do not know how the technology works. But I wouldn’t expect them too. I use my mobile phone, but I do not know how it works. What is important is that voters know how to vote, and vote properly.”

COMELEC’s campaign has used a mixture of TV, radio, web sites and social media to instruct Filipinos how to use the voting machines.

The machines have been produced by the foreign-local consortium Smartmatic TIM. The company’s Asia Pacific President Cesar Flores Zavarce noted that another common misconception is that the machines will be rendered useless in the event of “brown outs”, where power fails in localised areas.

“Every few weeks this question seems to crop up,” said Zavarce. “Every machine has a battery which last for 16 hours – enough time for a spare machine to be delivered - and in areas where there is no power at all, we are providing generators.”

The elections have seen 82,200 precinct optical scanners delivered to the Philippines from China where they were made, then shuttled to the 4000 inhabited islands around the archipelago. Other materials include 1722 canvassing and consolidation servers and printers, 180,640 compact flash memory cards, and 338,750 paper rolls for printing 30 copies of elections returns per precinct.

What used to take up to two months is expected to produce a result in 48 hours. The e-vote is also expected to save government coffers 4 billion pesos (US$90 million), excluding initial costs for the new machines and voter education programme.