by VERA Files
At Parang Elementary School in Marikina City, a mock election with 10 voters per cluster of precincts was held at the field test. After the printing of the election results, a manual count was conducted to the check the accuracy of the PCOS machines. The manual count tallied with the results from the PCOS machines.
One of the 20 PCOS machines at the school malfunctioned while printing the elections results.
Photographer Mario Ignacio. Click here (VERA Files) for his visual report.
Hi Ellen, folks,
Just been back from UK General Election watch partying with friends — thought I’d take a peek at Ellenville and see what’s going on before I hit the sack.
Well, good to hear that some PCOS machines work!
Does that mean that we should no longer fret? If so, sounds good to me…
By the way, over in the UK, according to early newscast, some 600 voters were disenfranchised (not able to vote, long queus and precincts closed by 10 PM as mandated by law). Goes to show that even in ‘developed’ countries, glitches happen during election day proper. Difference, however, is that the UK does not have a dishonest Gloria Arroyo-type leader (Ok, to some, Labour Gordon Brown is the most dishonest politician the UK ever had 🙂
Night, night…
Anna, we should continue to be vigilant and at the same time, patient. I agree with Christian Monsod in this.
As I never tire of saying, we are having this hysteria because we made a shortcut of the law and skipped the requirement that it should first be partially tested in a regular election.
We skipped that and decided to go nationwide. We have to live with that.
Pray, hope for the best but prepare for the worse.
Final test daw ng PCOS…e 20 units lang ang sinampulan at isa dito sumemplang pa, paano yong thousand PCOS nationwide?
Di ako mapalagay…SURE, naaamoy ko na…mayroong mangyayaring di maganda sa May 10, NAWA ang aking KUTOB e huwag mangyari or else giyera patani ito.
Testing pa lang yan ng 20 units ng PCOS, how about the transmittal ng votes counting results…makarating kaya on time, kasi nga po…tested na ba yong satellite links nila na gagamitin?
Excited na ang Noypi…sana successful ang May 10 kundi LAGOT ang mga Mamang sobra sa pansin, bilyones ang usapan dito kaya pagsemplang ng PCOS na yan dapat sa IWAHIG kayo ikulong.
Ellen,
I don’t understand… it is common sense to test any new technology before you launch it officially.
Comelec had billions in their purse to do this. Why didn’t they? Something not very good is afoot.
Kinakatasan ng husto ang project.
They didn’t even test the cards before they were dispatched! What boggles my mind is the fact that they have 30,000 CF cards as spares. System administrators consider it SOP for a full redundant testing before these machines pass quality control.
I know it’s standard to have at least 10% spares or about 8,000. That is so for all government supply contracts I have been part of. But 30,000?
Was the recall pre-planned?
yung mga memory card na ginamit sa absentee voting.. buti hindi defective?
lahat ba talga ng memory card defective? o sadyang isiningit lang ng mga defective na MC para isabotahe ang eleksyon? baka naman mind setting sa taong bayan para matanggap at hindi na magulat ang tao kung magkaron ng failure of election?
kung lahat ng orihinal na MC ay defective… ang ibig sabihin lang “nakalimutan” o “nagkamali” ang smartmatic na iconfigure ang mga MC angkop sa desinyo ng balota… imposible ang ganitong senaryo…
ang nakikita kong anggulo… may sadyang nagsingit ng ilang defective na MC para manabotahe o mandaya sa iilang presinto at nag desisyon ang komolek na palitan lahat ng MC para masigurong maitama ang lahat ng memory card…
I can’t believe this was all due to honest mistake. Dang, they claim to have hired 700 programmers, all experienced and experts and they were all failures at the fact that since the backpage layout was changed from column-ordered instead of the original row-ordered similar to the front of the ballot AND the change from single space to double space NO ONE from the 700 programmers (and add to that the several other superiors), again, NO ONE saw the need to at least revisit the code, if not perform actual tests?
Speaking as an experienced robotics/automation designer, fabricator, and systems integrator myself, it is a blunder of the worst breadth and only reflects the magnitude of incompetence of the people (Comelec and Smartmatic) tasked to automate this very important milestone in our historic struggle to rise from ignominy only to be frustrated by either the infamous mediocrity of our institutions or the elaborate evil designs of a regime struggling to survive as it breathes its last.
There is little reason, at least for me, to believe that the elections on May 10 will be overseen by people worthy of my minutest trust that every iota of confidence is laden with caution and contempt.
And no, I don’t buy Monsod’s spiel for his former office, the same office that wasted P1.3 Billion of our hard-earned money via an earlier automation failure and again in 2004 when it manipulated and thwarted the electoral will of our countrymen.
Hello Melo?
isa pang angulo…
ang lahat na PCOS machine na naideploy na sa ibat ibang panig ng bansa ay may laman ng tama o hindi depektibong memory card…
sinadyang magsingit ng depektibong memory card sa iilang pcos machine na dumaan sa testing noong nakaraan lunes pra magkaroon ng dahilan ang komolek o sinuman para palitan ang mga orihinal na memory card na may tamang program at magkaron ng pagkakataong isingit ang mga memory card na program para mandaya…
mahirap nga naman bantayan ng ibat ibang partido ang pagpapalit ng memory card kung nasa liblib na lugar na ng bansa…
This F’in gov’t is on its way out yet it continues to make us popular in being notoriously stupid in the eyes of the whole world.
People like Monsod want to stop “conspiracy theorists” like me from spreading the possibilities of fraud, but they won’t succeed. We may be sowing fear but it cuts both ways.
These bastards fear us, too! We’re keeping them on their toes.
they hired 700 programmers? kaya naman pala..too many cooks…kanya kanyang pakulo..pero iisa lang ang chef na nagpapagulo ng puta-he..the cheat chef…magulo….
sa interview ng GMA news kay Commissioner Larrazabal noong sumabog ang balita sa defective MC, ilang ulit nyang sinabi:
“Ang importante sa lahat nalaman ng maaga ang problema at naisa-publiko”
noong una, stupido para sa akin ang ganitong katwiran… pero kung iisipin maige… mukhang malaman! hindi lang nila mailabas ang totoong dahilan… ipinaako na lang sa smartmatic ang kamalian… pero malalaman natin ang totoong pangyayaring yan after election… kapag nanalo at naiproklama ang presidenteng tunay na oposisyon!
ang isa pang importanteng tanong… bakit hindi defective ang mga memory card na ginamit sa absentee voting?
Nagkamali ako ng thread. Mukhang mas bagay yung post ko sa ibang thread dito. Walang ginawa sa ibang thread kundi yung “My candidate is better than yours”.
Tapos na ang boksing. Nakapagpasya na ang mga tao. Formality na lang, na i-marka ang balota sa Lunes.
Two days to election time. Are the interested parties prepared?
It is often said that the cheating is done usually in the transmittal. Are we prepared to provide evidence against the transmitted fabrication? Have the parties ensured that there is at least one poll watcher with a digital camera or camera enabled cellphone at every precinct? That would ensure that the tally of totals is preserved in digital form to be compared to the tally submitted to Manila; later to be read in the canvassing of votes to be done by the Congress in joint session.
The parties could set up central emails per province, to which the cellphones would send the photos. The email owner can then proceed to download them and burn them to a disc. It would also, help, for sorting purposes, if the photos were labeled by precinct, for easy retrieval later.
The photographer can also issue an affidavit attesting to the veracity of the photo. Simple lang naman yang affidavit. I will post a template later. The affidavit will be sworn to before a notary, preferably before the Fiscal/Prosecutor. This is needed, because the photo has to be authenticated to be admissible in evidence. The affidavit is what authenticates it. The photographer can later snail mail the affidavit to the group’s central command.
The burned discs can be sent to the legislators for easy reference, so that when the canvassing is done, they will have the evidence to confront the chair, to avoid the “noted” tactic. Maybe that is why Manong Johnny does not want to step down, because he wants to ensure there is no notably noted session.
In the event of a jam, glitch or foul-up (incidental or by design), which will be known during the day, is there a lawyer ready with a petition to the RTC to ask for a mandatory injunction to compel a manual count after the closing of the precincts? If I wanted to cheat, I would produce a glitch, so that the paper ballots would not be fed into the machine. They would be stacked until the end of the day. Then, heroically, somebody comes up with a “replacement” chip, in lieu of the “malfunctioning” chip. It is that new hardware that will have the cheating code in it. Or, I can say that I will send the stacked ballots to another location, where there is a spare machine. Then the old switcheroo can be done on the paper ballots.
The totals from the photos sent to the central email can be posted on the web, so that the people will be able to view the results, even before the attack, I mean watchdogs, like NAMFREL can come up with their “neutral” count.
This can be done by anybody, whether student/youth group, political party, or just plain cyber barkadas. An upgraded gmail account providing 80 gig of storage is available for only $20 per year. I recommend, however, the decentralization by province, because it would be too tedious to wade through 80,000 photos.
As I posted earlier, there must be people power technically, to obviate the need for people power in the streets. There is the old saw about an ounce of prevention being better than a pound of cure. The people must know the total before the “official total” is sprung on them. With a little cooperation among the citizens, it can be done.
I dare not say God Bless the Philippines. Rather, God forgive the Philippines – for the years of complacency.
You’ve got the ball Juan de la Cruz.
These bastards fear us, too! We’re keeping them on their toes. — Tongue
Agree — that’s how things should be in a system that is not actually corrupt proof.
People like Monsod want to stop “conspiracy theorists” like me from spreading the possibilities of fraud, but they won’t succeed. We may be sowing fear but it cuts both ways.
These bastards fear us, too! We’re keeping them on their toes.- tongue
Wala akong tiwala sa kanila basta!
When it rains, it pours. Malaya’s Editorial has this to say on the source code review conducted by Comelec-Commissioned test lab, Systest:
What? More than four thousand major deviations and another four thousand minor deviations? Add to that more than five hundred major and minor issues which remained unresolved.
Clearly a failure of the election automation project which Comelec is aware of all along.
The next president must penalize both Comelec and Smartmatic and slap them with billions in penalty charges. take possession of the machines as leverage, then jail those who conspired to sabotage the elections.
Could it be that the money earmarked for the extras, eg., tests, were privately pocketed?
Tounge, I have no doubt that all these “glitches” and “technical anomalies” arose from the fact that this whole automation business was graft-ridden all the way through from Comelec to Malacanang.
Let’s all be vigilant against mandaraya and opportunists.