Failure of elections possible on May 2010, says Joey de Venecia III

"A very chaotic day"

This is how Joey de Venecia III sees the May 10, 2010 elections if the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) continues on its plans of fully automating the entire elections in May 2010.

Joey, who pioneered broadband technology here in the Philippines, says that it is nearly impossible for the COMELEC to deploy 47,000 technicians to man 80,000 voting machines in clustered precincts nationwide. And another concern of Joey---these voting machines would only be delivered by SMARTMATIC-TIM three days before the May 10, 2010.

" Too many things can go wrong", says Joey, " and SMARTMATIC is not a recruitment agency". The whistleblower of the NBN-ZTE deal says that it is nearly impossible for SMARTMATIC to recruit and train 47,000 I.T. technicians in a span of about 10 months.

Besides, Joey is equally concerned about the place where SMARTMATIC will store these counting machines. When they arrive, the machines will be stored in Bulacan. Joey fears that both software and hardware might be compromised.

2G0, the Aboitiz company contracted to deliver these machines to precincts nationwide, can only cover 60% of the entire country. How about the remaining 40%? Will this be sub-contracted?

De Venecia III says that there are too many improbables in this automation project that only means one thing---chaos and possible declaration of a failure of elections.

“Anything can happen,” he said, “the transmission of the returns will be through our existing telecoms system which does not operate at 100 percent efficiency.”

Bad weather, mechanical failure or power outages could affect the transmission of the results.

Even a two percent failure would translate to 800,000 votes being lost. In a close contest for the presidency, vice presidency or senate races, this loss could alter the final results, de Venecia said.

Even the newly-designed ballot could be problematic, he said, since the voter would have so many names to choose from. The time spent in filling the ballot will be much longer than before, and voters would still need to acquaint themselves with the new form.

For one, there is no room for error in filling the ballot.

As an example, the voter must make his or her pick of 12 senatorial candidates. He or she may opt to vote for less than 12, but if the voter checks more than 12 names, his vote becomes null and void.

In pushing for the Comelec to apply full automation only to Metro Manila, de Venecia said most if not all the potential problems could be solved instantly. Media, poll watchers, concerned citizens and the Comelec itself which is headquartered in Manila would be able to see the problems as they occurred and react accordingly.

Under a worst-case scenario, de Venecia said the Comelec could declare a failure of elections if too many voters are unable to cast their votes or if technical glitches interrupt the count or transmittal of returns.

“If the automated elections go well in the NCR , the Comelec can then apply nationwide computerized polls in the 2013 midterm elections, or even in the barangay elections in late 2010,” de Venecia said.