‘Smartmagic’ C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S Jonathan De la Cruz 06/07/2010

‘Smartmagic’

C.R.O.S.S.R.O.A.D.S Jonathan De la Cruz 06/07/2010 “Smartmagic” is how many of the IT experts, both local and foreign, we have been talking to over the past two and a half weeks in the course of the House inquiry on the conduct of our first ever automated election system (AES), have come to describe the system as finally put into play. That was not unexpected. In fact, given the avalanche of questions and imponderables which the Comelec and its AES contractor, Smartmatic-TIM, have failed to satisfactorily answer it, was bound to be the conclusion. It was clear that the system had been so mangled (handicapped by various instructions and interventions of the system by the ultimate manager — the Comelec — was how people in the know described it) from its original conception that what was actually put in place on election day was far from what the bidding documents said the system should be. In the words of one observer after the House conducted that inspection in Cabuyao — it may be true that the system worked in a controlled environment as in the Smartmatic plant — but the system was made to work in an entirely different and, yes, highly vulnerable one. So to the question can the system be interfered with?, the obvious answer is YES. And that is what happened as borne out by the tales of woe and wonder which have been coming out thus far. And not just from losing candidates, as one misinformed reporter mentioned, but from the experts and independent observers who have taken time out to voice their concerns and detail their observations. To be fair, Comelec and Smartmatic tried their best to defend the system and the manner they did their work but sadly, their explanations left a lot to be desired. It was good, as one expert noted, that in the case of the presidential contest it was a landslide of sorts, thus making what normally would have been major problems became “acceptable.” Imagine if the contest had been a close one (as in many local contests and, if we believe the camp of LP vice-presidential bet Sen. Mar Roxas, the vice-presidential race itself) then the legitimate flaws (and there are lots) would have tied these to the courts for years. In this expert’s view, the “hanging chads and pregnant ballots” in the now famous Florida count which decided the Bush-Gore presidential bout in 2000, would “have paled in comparison.”.... MORE     Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100607com4.html

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