IN A press briefing on the agency’s preparations for the 2025 midterm elections, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairperson George Edwin Garcia stated that he was optimistic that the purchase of the new and modern vote counting machines (VCMs) will reduce issues related to vote buying and electoral fraud. He stated that the procurement of these new VCMs is part of Comelec’s vision of enhancing democracy through modern technology. However, with the federal indictment of Smartmatic executives in the United States and the issues surrounding the award of the P18 billion VCM contract to Miru Systems, how can we fully trust that these Automated Counting Machines (ACMs) accurately reflect the votes, and therefore the will, of the people?
Manual vote counting in Philippines
Batasang Pambansa Blg 881 or the Omnibus Election Code, the fundamental statutory election law of the Philippines, ensures the accurate reflection of the will of the populace by providing a system of manual counting. Under Section 210 of BP 881, the chairman of the board of election inspectors is mandated to take the ballots one by one and read the names of candidates voted for and the offices for which they were voted in the order in which they appear. The poll clerk and a third member shall then record each vote on the election returns, and the tally board or sheet as the names voted for each office are read. This system of manual counting, including the other procedures stated in BP 881, is statutorily mandated to ensure the conduct of free, orderly, honest, peaceful, and credible elections.
Transition to automated election system
In the advent of automation and information technology, RA 8436, or the "Act Authorizing the Commission of Elections to use an Automated Election System," was enacted to ensure that the results of the elections, plebiscites, referenda, and other electoral exercises shall be fast, accurate and reflective of the genuine will of the people.
Under RA 8436, to expedite the vote counting, there was no more mention of the manual counting procedure laid down in BP Blg 881. Instead, Section 17 of RA 8436 lays down the counting procedure in an automated election system wherein the ballots shall be counted by the machine, and election officers need only to feed the valid ballots into the machine without interruption until all the ballots for the precincts are counted. With this new procedure under the Automated Election System, it seems that the law had done away with the manual counting system laid down in BP 881 and replaced it with the feeding of valid ballots in the machines and simply relying on said machines to accurately count the votes on the ballots fed to it.
While automation sped up the electoral process, there is no denying that the procedure laid down in RA 8436 is highly problematic. Without an independent system or arrangement to verify the accuracy and fairness of the count done by the machines, our democracy essentially rises or falls in the hands of fallible computer systems. This extensive reliance on machines is problematic in that software errors may go undetected and unknowingly vary the will of the people, there is no transparency in the counting of the individual ballots, and, in an age where hacking is rampant, opportunities for fraud exist on a greater scale.
The 2025 automated election system
For the 2025 midterm elections, the Comelec has decided to retire Smartmatic's decade-old VCMs with new ACMS from a Korean Firm, Miru Systems. However, new equipment and a new foreign supplier do not necessarily mean a better or fairer electoral process or system. In fact, several lawmakers have questioned the integrity of Miru Systems because of its flawed reputation overseas.
According to Politico, Miru Systems became the center of major technical issues in the recent elections in Iraq and Congo. In Iraq’s last provincial election, a group of election monitors said that machines in 70% of voting stations had malfunctioned by not transmitting and recording results properly, leading to worries of electoral fraud. Meanwhile, in Congo’s most recent election, 45% of polling stations reportedly experienced equipment malfunctions. In 2018, Reuters even reported that in Iraq, Miru’s machines were “at the heart of fraud allegations that led to a manual recount in some areas after the May 12 election.”
Other than these instances that had marred Miru System's reputation in deploying their ACMs overseas, Miru’s ACMs also failed to qualify as an automated election system per the specifications of RA 9369.
RA 9369 Section 7 (b) provides that the automated elections system must be accurate in the recording and reading of votes as well as in the tabulation, consolidation/canvassing, electronic transmission, and storage of results. Based on the reports on prior users of Miru's ACMs, it is clear that Miru has failed to meet this requirement. The failure to transmit and record results is an immediate red flag especially in a system where the vote counting is heavily reliant on the said computer systems.
Further, Section 7 (i) of RA 9369 states that the automated elections system must have a vote tabulating program for elections, referendums, or plebiscites. In the manual counting system, the tabulating system would be the simultaneous recording by the poll clerk and the third member on the tally board or sheet of each vote as the names voted for each office are read, all in full view by the public. Miru’s ACMs have no electronic equivalent for the public display of the tabulation of the votes cast. While one may argue that Miru’s ACMs internally tabulate the votes cast, the absence of a public display of how the votes are actually tabulated can open the gates for fraud and corruption in our electoral system.
With all these unaddressed issues and concerns, how are we to verify the accuracy of the counts done by these ACMs or VCMs?
Vote counting system: Manual or automatic?
If we read RA 9639 or the “Act Amending RA 8436” carefully, this law reinstates the manual counting of votes in an Automated Election System. Section 31 provides that in reading the individual official ballots during the counting, the chairman, poll clerk, and third member shall provide the watchers and the public an unimpeded view of the ballot being read by the chairman, of the election return, and the tally board being simultaneously accomplished by the poll clerk and the third member respectively.
In effect, this amendment brings back the manual counting system inside the Automated Election System, mandating the manual counting of the ballots by the chairman with the tally board being simultaneously accomplished within view of the watchers and the public.
Does this mean that VCMs or ACMs are no longer allowed this new amendatory law? Of course not.
As mentioned earlier, Section 17 of RA 8436 lays down the new procedure for the counting of votes under the new Automated Election System. However, in Section 18 of RA 9639, the aforementioned Section now mandates the COMELEC to prescribe the manner and procedure of counting the votes under the automated system. Thus, as stated in Section 18 of RA 9639, the amendment no longer makes the vote-counting procedure under Section 17 of RA 8436 mandatory but discretionary upon the Commission.
To emphasize, even though Section 18 of RA 8436 gives authority to the Commission to prescribe the manner and procedure of counting of votes under the automated system, this authority shall not go against the statutory mandates given to the chairman, the poll clerk, and the third member as stated in Section 31 of the same law to individually read the ballots and manually tally the same in view of the public.
Mandatory system of vote vounting under the law
The mandatory nature of using the manual system of vote counting is apparent in that the manner and procedure thereof is already laid down by law. In contrast, the automated system is still subject to the manner and procedure of counting prescribed by the Commission.
This inclusion of the manual counting system inside the amendatory law to the Automated Election System only means that the law did not intend for the electoral system to solely depend on machines, but rather, to ensure accuracy and verifiability of the votes cast, the manual system of counting should be primarily used with the assistance of VCMs or ACMs whenever the Commission sees fit.
While this discussion may seem academic, it reveals a serious problem in our current electoral system. RA 9369 was enacted last 2007, and yet, in every election cycle since then, we have failed to see the COMELEC direct the use of the manual counting system mandated by law. Instead, we have seen the predominance of these VCMs and ACMs despite the substantial allegations of fraud in relation to their use and operation.
Without the manual counting mandated by RA 9369 at the precinct level, there is no way of verifying and genuinely knowing if the number of votes, as reflected in the ACMs or VCMs, were indeed the votes cast by the people. The only practicable way to counter-check the results is by having data of the results per candidate per precinct so we can counter-check the results submitted to the Board of Canvassers. This verification and counter-checking can only be done through the manual counting system mandated by law.
An urgent call to action
The purpose of Election Laws is to protect the integrity of elections and to suppress all evils that may violate their purity and defeat the will of the voters. The purity of the elections is one of the most fundamental requisites of popular government. The Commission on Elections, by constitutional mandate, must do everything in its power to secure a fair and honest canvass of the votes cast in the elections.
Therefore, in such a time where government websites and information systems are susceptible to data breaches and hacking, in an era where there is a brewing mistrust by the Filipino people in our election system, and in a pivotal moment where we shift our trust from one allegedly corrupt foreign supplier to another foreign supplier with such a concerning track record, we make this urgent call to the Honorable Chairperson of the Comelec George Edwin Garcia to lead in performance of the Comelec’s mandate under the Constitution and in RA 9369.
We call on the Comelec, especially Chairperson Garcia, to direct the manual counting of votes at the precinct level and to promulgate the manner and procedure of counting of votes under the Automated Election System. It is only through this manner that we can truly preserve the integrity and sanctity of the ballot and hold a free, orderly, honest, peaceful and credible elections.
- Atty. Israelito P. Torreon