by Jovie Cabais | May 10, 2010 | Tech Updates
The Bohol Table Tennis Club congratulates the winners of the 4th Bohol Table Tennis Club Open Tournament: Class A 1st Prize: Victor Causin Jr. 2nd Prize: Ivan Cagas 3rd Prize: Ruji Cuizon Class B 1st Prize: James Perlas 2nd Prize: Maurello Petalcorin Jr. 3rd Prize: Arnel Aparicio The BTTC would like to acknowledge the following sponsors: – Boysen Paints -Magnolia Fruit Drinks -Hon. Rene Relampagos -Judd Joshua Gesite Share...
by Jovie Cabais | May 9, 2010 | Tech Updates
The automation of counting of ballots at the precinct level on the May 10 national elections is hounded by a lot of controversy of malfunction and other issues. The latest and embarassing mistake made by COMELEC and Smartmatic involved a relatively simple program issue: single space vs. double space. It is something that is easily tested and fixed before they came out to the public. However, it is also possible to be an honest human error and nothing more. The machine just follows whatever instruction it is given and an erroneous instruction would lead to erroneous results. But this error is already fixed and should not be used a basis for calling the coming elections a failure. In the last several weeks, so much misunderstanding, either due to lack of information or misinformation that has confused all of us and has created a cloud of doubt on the capability of COMELEC to succeed in the coming elections. Auza.Net has compiled 10 Myths About the May 10 Elections. This serves as a guide to all voters and hopefully everyone can vote according to their concience and free will rather than be influenced otherwise because of some of these myths. 1. We can’t verify the results of the counting and therefore it is easier to cheat in this election. — Of course we can. The ballots will not be destroyed after counting. In the worst case scenario, we can always do a manual count. But let’s do an automated count first because the machines are definitely faster and more accurate and consistent than humans. And we can repeat the counting as...
by Jovie Cabais | May 2, 2010 | Tech Updates
The May 10, 2010 elections is perhaps information technology’s biggest moment in Philippine politics. The automation of the counting of ballots is intended to speed up the counting at the precinct level. It should be made clear though that the automation is only up to the counting at precinct level. Everything else is the same process of manual consolidation of ballot counts per precinct to municipal, provincial and then national levels. Some sectors have suggested that a parallel manual count must be done but this is unnecessary and very costly, not only to the government but to the political parties who have to monitor the manual count per precinct. The random manual count to audit the results of a randomly selected precinct is sufficient for the purpose of verifying the level of error occuring which we hope should be close to zero. Also, let’s not forget that manual counting is most likely going to be more error prone due to the biases of the persons doing the counting. The candidates can be confident they are elected, even with some level of counting error, by making sure they have a significant lead. A lead of 10% should be quite secure even with a 2% counting error. A lead of just 1% is just subject to naturally occuring error. It is the responsibility of the candidate to make sure he leads by enough votes and that he makes sure the votes he gets are protected from fraud after the automated counting. Can the computer that counts the votes on the PCOS machine be programmed to favor a certain candidate? Unfortunately the answer to this is yes. However, that is the reason for having a random manual count to audit the results. Organizations watching the elections should make sure the random selection of precincts where manual counting will be done is truly random and that random selection is done only after the official results are printed on all PCOS machines in the area. A candidate with enough influence and financing can implement a dagdag-bawas scheme if the manual count audit is not random. Also, the results of the precincts with manual counts should be compared to other precincts nearby to make sure the results are similar. If the random manual count for audit is done properly, it would be impossible not to detect an intentional rigging of the program doing the counting on the PCOS machine. As Ronald Reagan used to say, “Trust, but verify”. We should trust COMELEC and the technology they have implemented to speed up our election process. However, let us verify the results and not be complacent. And lastly, let us hope candidates not elected will concede gracefully and not blame technology for their situation after the elections. Share...
