3. Agenda
Why we need to automate
elections
The manual election system
Alternative solutions
4. Why do we need to automate
elections
Process is too long. It takes 25-40
days before national positions can be
proclaimed.
To eliminate wholesale cheating, incl.
DAGDAG-BAWAS
6. Basic Election-related Data
83 Provinces
200 Congressional Districts
1,600 Cities and Municipalities
40,000 Barangays
250,000 precincts
40M+ voters
7. Elective Positions
National Positions
President
Vice-President
24 Senators (12 elected/3 years)
Party List
Local Positions
Congressman
Governor
Vice-Governor
Provincial Board
Mayor
Vice-Mayor
Councilors
8. Definition of Terms
BEI - Board of Election Inspectors (250,000)
CMBOC - City/Municipal Board of Canvassers (1,600)
PBOC - Provincial/District Board of Canvassers (200)
NBOC - National Board of Canvassers (Comelec/Congress)
ER - Election Returns
SOV - Statement of Votes
COC - Certificate of Canvass
9.
10.
11.
12. The Manual Election System
1. Ballots tallied by BEI in
each precinct and ERs
prepared
2. BEIs bring ERs to
CMBOCs
3. CMBOCs canvass ERs
and prepare SOVs and
COCs; bring them to
PBOCs
4. PBOCs canvass COCs
and prepare provincial
COCs and SOVs; bring
them to NBOC
5. NBOC (Comelec)
canvasses COCs;
Congress canvasses
Pres/VP COCs
13. Manual Tallying/Canvassing
Time Line
5-12 10 days 20 30 40
hrs
CITY / MUNICIPAL, PROVINCIAL
AND NATIONAL CANVASSING (25
PRECINCT – 40 DAYS)
TALLYING
Given the above time line, it becomes obvious, which phase of the
election process should be automated.
14. So now, we want to apply
technology in our elections ...
1. to speed up the process and to be able
to proclaim the winning candidates
earlier;
2. to minimize, if not eliminate, cheating;
Ahh … but we have added a third ...
3. to make the election process
transparent to the public
15. Election processes that can be
automated
Voters list
Voting
Tallying
Canvassing
Reporting
16. In automating elections, two issues
immediately come to mind:
How do we secure the system?
Which technology should we adopt?
17. Two ways of securing a system
Fence it in very tightly so no Secure the system, but make a
intrusion can ever occur copy of all software and data
(security by obscurity). (read only) accessible to all
interested parties and to the
However, implementor must
public.
prove to all interested
parties that system is indeed
Proof of veracity and accuracy
extremely secure.
of results becomes automatic.
Not easy to convince all;
there will always be
doubters.
We favor this because
it is the transparent
alternative.
18. Features of an ideal automated
election system for the Philippines
Automates canvassing
Tight security measures
All steps transparent to the voting public
Software used available to the public
Digital counts and results, in all steps, available to the public (any
one can do his own tabulation)
Results quickly verifiable all the way to original source documents
Cost-effective (P4-8 billion, depending on the solution)
Minimum or no training required for >40M voters
Minimum or no storage concerns after each election process
Not dependent on the trustworthiness of the implementors
19. Alternative election automation
technologies
1. DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) System – “touch-screen”
2. OES (Open Election System) - manual voting & counting, and
automated canvassing
PC-based data encoding of ERs
3. OES-OMR (Optical Mark Recognition) System – pre-printed ballots,
read by OMRs at the voting centers (schools)
20. Option 1: Direct Recording
Electronic System1. 2-4 Units per
precinct
9
2. Touch screen,
mouse, or keyboard
7 8 3. Voter’s choices
printed for audit
purposes
4. At end of voting
(3:00pm), ER is
6 printed
5. ER transmitted to
5
CMBOC and NBOC
5
6. NBOC transmits data
to interested parties
7. CMBOC produces
3 SOV and COC;
transmits to PBOC
8. PBOC produces SOV
and COC; transmits
4
to NBOC
9. NBOC produces SOV
and COC
21. Direct Recording Electronic System
PROs CONs
Instantaneous tally of votes at Not transparent. Voters will
precinct level distrust vote-counting that
they did not see (a big issue in
If all precincts connected,
the US)
almost instantaneous canvass
at City/Mun., Prov., & Natl. Cost prohibitive, estimated at
levels; ergo, theoretically, P15-20B (some est. >P30B)
national results known 1 hr. Logistics can be a nightmare
after close of voting (750K units to 250K locations)
Less work for BEI Thousands of technical people
With one printer per precinct, req’d (but where to deploy?)
printing of 30 copies of ER at BEI training staggering
precincts is easy 40 Million voters to be trained
No ballot box snatching Where online connection is
unavailable, difficult to secure
electronic media (CDs)
After each election, storage of
750K units is major concern
22. But … wasn’t the automation of the
last ARMM election successful?
23. From Dr. Aviel Rubin’s book,
“Brave New Ballot”
“Past performance is no guarantee of
future results, especially when it comes to
security.”
“Success on a small scale does not
guarantee success once the scale of a
project is enlarged.”
24. Besides (and very few people realize
this), …
The ARMM election is a non-event!
25. These statements are quite
disturbing
quot;DRE was well-received but was seen by
some as too expensive. OMR was cheaper
but it still requires human intervention.quot;
quot;DRE is suited for areas where there is
good infrastructure including electricity and
connectivity. OMR is more suitable for rural
areas where infrastructure isn't that
reliable.quot;
27. TransparentElections.org
We are NOT vendors of election systems
We are a team of similarly-minded IT
practitioners who have implemented
election-related projects in the past, using
ICT
28. Option 2: Open Election System 1. Votes cast & tallied as
PC Encoding in manual voting
2. ERs brought to school
encoding (PC) center
3. ERs validated then
posted on the web w/
BEIs digital signature
4. CMBOC will access
CITY/MUNICIPAL
BOARD OF CANVASSERS
PROVINCIAL
BOARD OF CANVASSERS
NATIONAL
BOARD OF CANVASSERS database, produce
SOV, COC
5. All interested parties
may access and
process the data by
themselves
6. All interested parties
can send SMS to
watchers to verify
DOMINANT DOMINANT CITIZENS MEDIA &
PARTY OPPOSITION ARM OTHERS
VOTING CENTER figures
7. PBOCs access DB;
produce Prov SOVs
and COCs
8. NBOC accesses DB for
DOMINANT DOMINANT CITIZENS MEDIA &
PARTY OPPOSITION ARM OTHERS
ENCODING CENTER
PRECINCTS final results
29. Open Election System
PROs CONs
Most transparent - voters and
watchers observe tally at Manual tallying is tedious
precinct level ERs will have to be encoded
No need for voter training Looking for tens of thousands
Once ER is encoded, result (web of encoders is a challenge
database) becomes accessible Since it’s still manual tallying,
to the public public may think that election
Cost affordable at about P2B is not automated
(Comelec only buys PCs/servers)
PCs/servers can be passed on to
DepEd after each election
No storage concerns, because
machines can be passed on to
DepEd
Ballot box snatching/switching
will not affect results
30. Open Election System 1. Votes cast & tallied as
in manual voting
OMR 2. ERs brought to school
encoding (OMR)
center
3. ERs validated then
posted on the web w/
BEIs digital signature
CITY/MUNICIPAL PROVINCIAL NATIONAL
4. CMBOC will access
BOARD OF CANVASSERS BOARD OF CANVASSERS BOARD OF CANVASSERS database, produce
SOV, COC
5. All interested parties
may access and
process the data by
themselves
6. All interested parties
DOMINANT DOMINANT CITIZENS MEDIA &
can send SMS to
PARTY OPPOSITION ARM OTHERS
watchers to verify
VOTING CENTER figures
7. PBOCs access DB;
produce Prov SOVs
and COCs
OMR DOMINANT DOMINANT CITIZENS MEDIA &
PRECINCTS PARTY OPPOSITION ARM OTHERS
8. NBOC accesses DB for
final results
31. Optical Mark Recognition
PROs CONs
Ballots are pre-printed so Internal tallying. Voters won’t
voters simply mark choices see and may not trust count
Voter training minimal, relative Wholesale cheating, usually
possible only at canvassing
to DRE
level, can happen at precinct
Faster, because tally of votes level
automated Sensitivity to external marks or
Less work for BEI at precinct smudges
level Difficult to fairly resolve over-
Cost less than DRE; approx. marked ballots
P8B (using $2,000 OMRs) Easier to add to under-marked
ballots
Need to store specialized OMR
machines
32. What does the OES Alternative
need?
1. COMELEC’s approval of concept
2. COMELEC’s bidding out the development
of the system and computer programs
3. Making system/programs available to IT
community and to public
4. Adopting good contributions
5. Making the system available to all
interested parties, free of charge
33. Once the OES system has been
developed, the COMELEC would
need to …
Bid out the PCs, servers, (the inexpensive
OMRs), and the communications
requirements
Bid out the management and
implementation of the project
34. All 3 systems …
will speed up the process, in varying
degrees
will minimize cheating, in varying degrees
but only OES will be transparent to
the voting public
35. Now, you can make an
informed choice of
which solution to
support.
36. Should you believe (passionately, we
hope), that OES is the right election
system for the Philippines, then
please …
… join us in convincing the COMELEC, its
Advisory Council, and Congress to adopt
OES; and
… sign up to be a member of
TransparentElections.org
37. If we can’t see it,
we can’t trust it!
TransparentElections.org
