Modernizing Philippine Elections
by Gus Lagman

What should we automate?

There are two areas in our election system that should be modernized or computerized --- the voters registration system and the counting and
canvassing processes.

The main objectives in modernizing the voters registration system is to facilitate updating of the voters list and, more important, to cleanse the voters list of "flying voters" and other illegitimate voters.

On the other hand, the main objectives of modernizing the counting and canvassing procedures are to speed up the process and therefore minimize, if not eliminate, cheating in the electoral process.

Voter's Registration System

Let's start with the first one --- the voters registration system. Its basis is R.A. 8189, signed into law on June 11, 1996 and which is entitled --- An Act Providing for a General Registration of Voters, Adopting a System of Continuing Registration, Prescribing the Procedures Thereof, and Authorizing the Appropriation of Funds Therefor

(Notice that, unlike R.A. 8436, there is no implementation date stated. The law also does not specify the registration system to be used. A
section in the law merely mentions that there should be a computerized list of voters.)

It is true that, ideally, each voter should be issued a tamper-proof or near tamper-proof ID that only he/she can use. But while this is ideal, it is also very expensive. When this was bid out last year, the lowest bid was P6.5 billion --- way over their budget of P1.2 billion! How Commissioner Tancangco can proceed with awarding it, knowing fully well
that there is no allocation for it, is something that she has to answer for, not only to COA, but to the taxpayers as well.

The only way the cost of the project can be justified is if the card can be used for multi purposes --- as a Voter's ID, as an SSS/GSIS card, a TIN card for the BIR, maybe even as a driver's license. Then, the cost can be shared by many agencies. But solely as a Voter's ID? There's no way it can be justified. There are far less expensive alternatives that will accomplish the same results.

If the purpose is to have a file of voters that can easily be updated and from where reports can conveniently be prepared, then creating and maintaining a computerized database of voters, as was done by the COMELEC in the mid-90s, is all that is needed. Assuming that all the PCs that were distributed to the Election Registrars by the Monsod commission are no longer working, then replace them. The total cost to purchase 2,000 PCs, at the average price of say, P50,000 each, including printers and modems, is only P100 million.

To the question --- "Yes, the COMELEC might have a computerized list, but how do you purge the list of flying voters?" I offer the following solutions:

1. Provide a list of voters by precinct to political parties and a citizens' arm like NAMFREL. The list can be given in diskettes and the recipients asked to pay for the cost of producing them. These groups, on their own, at no cost to the COMELEC and the taxpayers, can and will do a house-to-house verification campaign to check if those voters listed under each address actually live there. Exclusion procedures can ensue from the campaign.

NAMFREL actually offered to take on that task many years ago, but the COMELEC did not take the offer seriously.

2. If the above is not enough, then instead of using a dropper to apply indelible ink on the voters' index finger, let's ask the voters to dip the whole finger in a bottle of ink. Funny? That's what they do in Indonesia and Cambodia. And why not? Indelible ink is cheap. Surely, the COMELEC won't have to use up the budgeted P1.2 billion on ink!

It's a good thing the VRIS project of Commissioner Tangcangco did not materialize. We would have wasted so much money. And at this time when the government will surely face a budget deficit, it is criminal! I read in the newspapers that the supplier of the VRIS system wants their contract honored. Well, this is a problem that the COMELEC must face. Bidding out and "awarding" a project without sufficient funds allocated for it, are just not done in the government and most likely violate COA rules!(There is a local company that claims to have developed a system that can meet the specifications of VRIS, but at less than a third of the price quoted by the winning bidder. The COMELEC may want to investigate that option.)

I should emphasize at this point that no matter which computerized voters' list or registration and ID system the COMELEC employs, it will not be able to prevent the commission of some fraudulent acts, like:

1. Vote-buying/vote-selling;

2. Terrorizing voters to prevent them from voting, so that they (the terrorists) can cast the votes in their stead, as has happened in some politician/goon-controlled areas many times in the past;

3. Dagdag-bawas during canvassing at the city/municipality/provincial levels (wholesale cheating). And ... no ID system, no matter how sophisticated, will work unless the law allowing a voter who forgot or lost his Voter's ID, to show a substitute ID, is amended.

Next: Counting and Canvassing Process

Address:
Unit 263 Cityland Dela Rosa Condominium, Dela Rosa Street, Makati City

Phone:
(02) 894-4325 or (02) 894-4397

E-mail: [email protected]