On October 23, 2020, it was reported that the Chair of the Senate Electoral Reforms and Peoples’ Participation, had said that the proposal for the establishment of a hybrid election system had to be placed on the back burner after the Covid-19 pandemic changed the priorities of the government and lawmakers. Earlier this week, with the filing of Senate Bill 1950—entitled An act providing for the conduct of hybrid national, local, and Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao elections, through manual-automated voting, counting, canvassing, consolidation, and transmission, amending for the purpose Republic Act 8436, amended, and for other purposes—it would seem that hybrid elections are back on top of the agenda.
So now seems as good a time as any, to recall why the Philippines shifted to an automated electoral system in the first place. More specifically, what was the problem with the existing electoral system then, that automation was intended to address?
The principal problem that the AES was designed to address was Human Intervention—the ability of human actors to influence the outcome of the elections through acts committed during various stages of the vote counting and canvassing process.
Human intervention meant, among other things, that each vote on each ballot was interpreted by the person reading the ballot during the counting. When voter intent is clear, this is a pretty straightforward affair. But deciphering voter intent—or what the voter wanted to say with their ballot—isn’t always so clear-cut. In the old days when people had to write down the names of the candidates, penmanship was always a problem. If the person reading the ballot couldn’t understand what the voter wrote, the whole thing quickly devolved into a veritable shouting match between contending candidate representatives, each claiming the vote for their own.
With the proposed manual-automation hybrid, the drafters seem to think that a lotto-style voting scheme would eliminate the problem of interpreting voter intent. I seriously doubt that it will. In fact, I think it just might be worse.
Whether you need to draw a vertical line through a box, or shade-in an oval, the interpretation of the mark still requires a person to make a judgment call about the mark they are looking at. And with human persons reading the ballots, it is inevitable that there will be wild variations in how voting marks would be interpreted across more than a hundred thousand precincts nationwide. One BEI member might be a stickler for precision, and another might be more easy-going and accept as a valid mark just any old ink smudge on the ballot. In fact, if teachers took turns reading the ballots, these variations in “standards” could conceivably result in significant differences in how ballots are appreciated, in the same precinct!
And if we were to assume the worst—for forward planning and risk management purposes, we should—then it would be the easiest thing in the world for a BEI member, acting with malicious intent, to actually cheat by simply adding a mark onto the ballot before reading it. A swift stroke of a pen or pencil could easily result in a vote where a vote didn’t exist before, or it could even invalidate a vote by creating an over-vote.
None of these things are possible with automated counting, of course, since no one ever touches the accomplished ballot other than the voter themselves. Plus, the vote counting machines snap pictures of the ballot as they are being inserted, creating a permanent record of what the ballot looked like as it was leaving the voter’s fingers. Under a manual system, you not only lose that safeguard, you actually open up the ballot—and ultimately, the primacy of voter intent—to attack in those moments before the votes are actually read.
And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg of everything that’s possible—and I would say probable—with a hybrid election system that utilizes manual counting. Sadly, it would seem that in the rush to return to manual, these very real threats to the integrity of the elections are being glossed over.
There’s more to discuss, and trust me, we will. While the Comelec, as a matter of policy, remains firmly committed to its role as the implementor of whatever election system Congress sees fit to pass, I—having been with the Commission since before automation took root—happen to have very strong opinions about the election system that, for all its flaws and shortcomings, has produced two Presidents with rock-solid mandates; that has weathered more than a hundred challenges to its accuracy and reliability; and which has successfully taken teachers out of the line of fire.
For this reason, I believe that it is in the nation’s best interest that everyone be fully informed about all the issues involved in choosing between AES and the hybrid system, before they manage to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
1 comment
cheating is easier in computerized voting. just one command to a computer will enormously alter results.
why not try the following: 1. manual voting , 2. canvassed results at the precincts shall be final and official, 3. abolish all board of canvassers, 4. electronically and simultaneously transmit canvassed results the precincts to the municipal, provincial and national comelec.
but the most important amendment to election process is to have a ban on political dynasties.