THE FIELD TESTING of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to be used in the automated elections continues to be hounded by glitches, most recently in Taguig and Pateros where election officials ran a demonstration at selected schools Friday.
After repeated attempts to transmit the results of the demo vote failed, residents who participated in the demo test at the Maharlika Elementary School in Taguig said they were afraid the vote could be tampered with should election inspectors fail to transmit the results right after polls close at 6 p.m. on May 10.
“What assurance do we have that the networks won’t bog down on election day?” asked Alhabsar Sahijuan, after technicians, using three different SIM cards, took almost an hour to send the results.
Simultaneous tests were also held at the Taguig Elementary School and Aguho Elementary School in Pateros.
36-hour period
Commission on Elections Spokesperson James Jimenez said the technical difficulties did not mean that the elections are doomed.
He noted that the tests were aimed at exposing the weaknesses of the system so that they could be addressed.
At the Taguig City Hall where the transmitted votes from Maharlika were received, Comelec official Celia Romero said that a delay in the transmission of results does not necessarily mean that there is a problem.
She said the Comelec has allotted some 36 hours for the transmission of returns from the precincts to the municipal level.
“We estimate the transmission time to be around two minutes, but in case there are delays, the 36-hour period would be sufficient to remedy the issue,” explained Romero, a member of the Comelec project management office which oversaw the demonstration.
She noted that from time to time text messages get delayed “but users still get the message.”
She also noted that aside from three SIM cards which will be issued to teachers, a broadband satellite connection and a high-speed Internet line are also on standby.
Signal problems
Michael Dioneda, Comelec director for the National Capital Region, said the four PCOS, which will be used to record and count the votes, encountered some problems during the transmission stage so the results could not be transmitted after several attempts.
“We encountered problems in terms of signal, but eventually it was all transmitted,” Dioneda told a press briefing.
The three machines in the Maharlika and Taguig elementary schools were able to transmit the results via GSM—the network used by cell phone providers—after Comelec officials changed the SIM cards.
The troubleshooting in the these instances lasted about 45 minutes and it took technicians three SIMs to get the signal for transmission, Dioneda said.
In the Aguho Elementary School, the problems with transmission persisted even after the SIM cards were replaced.
In the end, the technicians had to resort to the Broadband Global Arena Network satellite transmission to send the data to the canvassing center at the Pateros Municipal Hall.
One machine, also in the Aguho school, rejected four out of 10 ballots. Dioneda said the machines may have rejected the ballots because they were crumpled during the first field test last Wednesday.
Mock poll Feb. 6
Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM, the technology provider implementing the country’s first-ever electronic balloting, is addressing the problems encountered in the voting and transmission of ballots.
But that the machines were able to send the votes accurately to the canvassing centers showed that the system was working, Larrazabal said.
Larrazabal noted that the Comelec is taking note of the technical and procedural glitches during the tests to ensure that these will not be repeated on election day.
“There are some things we observe today that will help us in the conduct of elections,” he said.
“We are going to do another test, a more comprehensive one, which is the mock elections on Feb. 6,” he said.
Questions from residents
Some 20 residents, including barangay officials, participated in yesterday’s field-test demonstrations, throwing questions at Dionela and Comelec staff.
Pointing out that the telcos experience much traffic during holidays, Sahijuan said the same could happen on election day because the airwaves would be buzzing with queries about the results, among other things.
Dionela said the telcos have assured the Comelec that their services would be at their “fullest potential” on election day.
Dionela walked the observers through the process from the setting up of the machine at the precinct, to the printing of election returns and transmitting of the results to the main server in Intramuros.
Ballot too long
Teresa de Luna, 59, found the ballot to be too long and the letters too close to each other. Although she used her reading glasses to take a look at the ballot, she said it would be better if the letters were bigger.
Ricarido Bautista, 45, asked why people with disabilities have to be certified by a Comelec office to be handicapped just to allow the person to have a companion at the voting booth.
“The commission should have at least listed voters who had disabilities to spare them the hassle of proving their handicap,” he said.
Dionela explained that persons with disabilities who need to have companions when they vote have to prove to the election officer in their area of their handicap.
Sahijuan said yesterday’s demo had barely reassured him that the polls would go smoothly. He said he was hesitant about the new process but would still vote because “that’s my right and I don’t want it to go to waste.”
“I just hope the system would be further enhanced, but I believe automating the elections is the way to go,” he said.
More delays
In another field test in a remote village in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, on Thursday, it took nearly five hours for about 300 people to finish casting their ballots.
It also took more than an hour for the results to reach the provincial capitol in Koronadal City.
During the voting process, which started after 11 a.m., the machines encountered a slowdown, thereby delaying the process.
Jay Herada, the South Cotabato election supervisor, said the voting machine would regularly “pause” during the voting process, thereby delaying the printing of the results.
It was almost 5 p.m. when the mock balloting ended.
Herada blamed the delay in the transmission to a weak signal and bad weather.
He said there is a need to fine-tune the technical aspect of the automated voting such as changing the location of the machine to another area, where the signal would be stronger.
In Kidapawan City in North Cotabato, which was also one of the pilot-testing areas, the process went smoothly but observers raised the possibility of power failure on election day.
Election officer Diosdado Javier said the Comelec was coordinating with the power companies.
Soldiers to stop saboteurs
He said the military would also deploy soldiers to thwart saboteurs from attacking power lines.
If anything goes wrong, he said the machines are also equipped with an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) system that will automatically operate in case of a power outage. - source: inquirer.net
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