Too soon to call 2010 elections successful

It is too soon to declare the 2010 elections a success. People want a successful election so badly, that it is easy to get carried away by flood of incoming election returns. Many want to believe that a clean and honest election has finally happened, at last. But the vice-presidential election is yet to be [...]

Expect a flood of demands for recount from losing candidates

The PCOS fiasco a few days before the May 10 elections has shattered the credibility not only of election automation, but of the entire electoral process itself. The entire process hinges on an accurate count by the PCOS machine. In fact, COMELEC specifications require at least 99.995% accuracy, or at most one error for every [...]

HALAL Statement: Smartmatic ballot production software was not certified

HALAL STATEMENT Last April 30, in response to a request by candidate Joey de Venecia III, the Comelec made public a set of documents relating to the source code review of the Smartmatic software conducted by SysTest Labs Inc. One of the documents was “Certification Test Summary for AES May 2010 Rev. 1.00”, dated March [...]

Smartmatic machines are not so smart after all

We are spending P7.2 billion to lease these “smart automatic” machines. It turns out that they are not so smart after all. In fact, they seem downright stupid. They can’t recognize a check mark or a cross. They can’t recognize ballpen or pencil marks. They need full, dark shadings to be convinced that you want [...]

HALAL analysis of recently-released SysTest source code review

Halalang Marangal (HALAL) recently obtained a copy of the SysTest report on the source code review of the Smartmatic software that it conducted Oct. 26, 2009 to Feb. 9, 2010. This review was the basis for the Comelec concluding that the Smartmatic Automated Election System will count our May 10 votes properly, securely and accurately. [...]

How to show that a PCOS voting machine is accurate enough

The COMELEC has already rejected 100% manual audit proposal. That should be the end of it. Yet, it is hard ignore the voices of the country’s major information technology organizations, business oranizations, legal organizations, election watchdogs, church organizations, and other sectors – all counselling the COMELEC to do a 100% manual audit, since this is [...]

The high-speed printing that misaligned UV marks can misalign the ballot ovals too

The ultraviolet (UV) scanner of the PCOS was disabled because the high-speed printing resulted in the UV mark on the ballot being “misaligned by one to two millimeters”, according to COMELEC Commissioner Larrazabal. As a result, the machine’s UV scanner often missed the mark and many valid ballots being being rejected. Here’s the big question: [...]