Opinion of an IT Student Regarding Automated Poll Election

            I couldn’t really remember when was the first time I heard that the upcoming election on 2010 will be automated here in the Philippines. As far as I could recall, I learned it through the words of mouth by the people around me until such time that it had become official and had been broadcast to the public.

            To be honest, when I first heard about automating the election process on May 2010, I became glad because at long last the government favored technology. I could even consider it as a pace forward towards the dream of becoming a developed country from its long status as a developing country which belongs in third world countries. I was also happy because I could now apply the knowledge I have acquired in my course so far which is “Bachelor of Science in Information Technology” and participate, if given a change, to the activities in upcoming election as one of the watchers in achieving a clean election as possible.

            As what as I am expecting, the upcoming Automated Poll Election had been imbued with intrigues and criticisms. From the news that I had heard, from the articles that I had read, from the discussions that I had joined with, even from the people around me including my family and friends, people had their own opinions about the change in voting system.Some agreed while other condemn, some review it while others trash it, some thinks it good while others thinks it was just demagogue’s way of cheating in the upcoming election.

            Having been heard about the different views of the people regarding the new system to be implemented, I decided to take a little excursion about what are the proposals on how the Automated Poll Election will take place.

            I had researched in different types of medium just to get the information about information I needed. To be transparent to my results, I researched again and compared it from my previous searches. I found out that the Comelec (Commission on Election) are selecting two prototypes: the Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Technology and the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) Technology.

             In Direct Recording Technology, touch-screen machines will be used in voting. The running candidates will be displayed in the screen. The voters will just point his preferred candidate and confirm the selection. No traditional paper ballots will be used in this technology except for the confirmation paper that will be printed out after voting. This confirmation paper includes the list of the person that the voter had chosen and it will serve as an evidence for the voter’s transaction. For security and safety purposes, this confirmation paper will not be given away to the voter but should be kept by the Comelec officers.

             On the other hand, Optical Mark Reader Technology will still be using paper ballots unlike the DRE Technology but not the traditional one. Here, a special paper ballot will be provided to the voters where the lists of running candidate’s name are printed. Beside the every name, a circle or oblong figure is provided which serves as the option of the voter. That figure will be shaded will special marker provided if the voter will choose the certain candidate. The voter should make sure that the shaded portions are correct so the vote that should be intended to candidate A will not go to candidate B just because of shading the wrong figure. After choosing the entire desired candidate, the voter will feed the special paper ballot to the machine that will scan the paper to encode its choices. It is still not clear if the machine will still print a confirmation sheet or the confirmation will just be posted by the machine’s Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) after feeding the special paper ballot. The fed paper ballot will serves as the evidence that election had took place.

             After every transaction of a voter in the machines will readily count the votes and will be saved to the database of the machine. After the election, the votes gathered by the machines will be transmitted to the head office to congregate the data and see the final result of whoever candidate had won.

If and only if no disruptions will occur to manipulate the data that had been gathered, an accurate result will come out to the public which had addressed the election problems in the past.

            That was just an overview about what Automated Poll Election can do. It sounds as an advantage if it will be performed correctly and honestly. Moreover, I cannot hide the reality that still there is a possibility that the results will be manipulated. I am not only talking as a concern voter here but also as an IT student who’s also aware of these malicious things.

             For those who are tyros in Information Technology, one of the record manipulation techniques of the virtuosos in the field of IT is cracking. It is a way of changing the real record into a new one by intruding a not thoroughly secured system. I could even say, based on my research, that a much secured system can still be attacked by intruders who wanted to manipulate the record if they want and if they can. Furthermore, if you have heard a word hacking, it is merely different from cracking but still it is an intrusion. In hacking, the record will just be illegally viewed but it will not going to be altered, just for viewing purposes. But, let’s not tackle more about this because it will be out of the topic.

             I do understand why people critique the change in election system because it’s a part of change. According to my instructor way back then, whenever a change is introduced, resistance will always be present. Actually, I could say that criticizing this new system is good because people are being vigilant in what are the things that are happening around them. As far as I could see, many organizations are emerging to promote clean election system not only in 2010 election but also for the upcoming future election.

             What I wanted to show is the advantage and disadvantage of both parties that may occur. Even if you choose the traditional or the new electronic system, still, advantages and disadvantages take place. What is the most important here is the essence of unity. People are uniting for one goal of having a clean election as much as possible. If we just look through, there is no problem in the machines; it was just a piece of crap. The dilemma is on the people; doing harmful thing, performing the prohibited ones, destroying valuable items, and so on. I am not trying to be clean here, if you have say so, but why not try to be clean for ourselves first. Why not follow the famous saying,” Don’t ask what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country”. Is it really that difficult to be humane? Let’s remember, we are the one that controls our life so as that machines that we have discussed. So, if the result of having the election automated is good or not, the choice was all in our hands.

Reference:

Article written by Rony V. Diaz
manilatimes.net
electionpeople.com
Article written by Lito Banayo
Article written by Carmela Fonbuena