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This paper was presented by Gus Lagman during the e-Services Conference held June 28-30, 2001 at the PTTC Bldg., Roxas Blvd., Pasay City. Some additions have been made since, in order to clarify some points and to make the discussion more complete. Latest revision was made on October 1, 2001. Gus has 39 years of experience in IT and since 1984, has led NAMFREL's Systems Group in the implementation of its Operation Quick Count(OQC). Introduction Judging from most news reports, articles of opinion writers and comments from politicians, it is apparent that the so-called modernization of our elections system is not clear to a lot of people. And unfortunately, the COMELEC has not made sufficient effort to clarify this to the public. Worse, some of their
officials, intentionally or unintentionally, issue statements and execute
plans that only serve to confuse the public even We often hear people
say --- "It's useless to computerize the voting unless we first purge the voters list of flying voters --- 'garbage in, garbage out', as they say." "Are we really ready for computerized voting? Would the voters know what to do?" "With computerized elections, we wouldn't know how we're going to be cheated." "We don't even have electricity in some parts of the country, how can we computerize the elections?" "Wouldn't a Malacañang-controlled COMELEC find manipulation of the results much easier?" "Would it really solve the problem? Look at what happened during the last presidential elections in Florida, USA." All of these questions are valid and not at all unexpected, especially because they would usually come from people who either don't know enough about computers and/or are not familiar with the Philippine electoral process. It is the intent of this paper to clarify all of the issues surrounding the modernization of elections. It is also hoped that accomplishing that, the voters would support moves to automate the election processes and the COMELEC would hasten its implementation instead of wasting precious time. This presentation will tackle the questions Why should we automate the election system? What should we automate? Before I do that,
let me first relate to you some historical facts regarding the modernization
of the election system.
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