PCOS ruckus SHE SAYS Dinah S. Ventura 05/24/2010

PCOS ruckus

SHE SAYS Dinah S. Ventura 05/24/2010 I may have to take back my glowing review of the speed the recent elections took in terms of coming up with results. After a few days of summing up the votes from all parts of the country, the count slowed down quite drastically. And now we have to contend with a barrage of complaints from those claiming that cheating took place… again. It’s quite funny, really. Let us not deny that part of us hoped the automation would negate that joke about Filipinos never losing in elections. (Okay, if you still don’t know, the punch line is that Pinoys never lose because those who do not make it insist they won but were cheated!) But now it’s all happening again, and this time, a number of characters are complaining to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that something fishy went on with the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, thereby giving birth to the new “Hello Garci” (or election fraud term), “hocus-PCOS.” If the masked man claiming to be a whistleblower on the automated cheating that allegedly went on last elections is to be believed, then “thousands of so-called ‘players’ supposedly rigged the recent elections,” as revealed to media. The man who calls himself Robin (Hood or hoodlum?) made special mention of presidential candidate Jejomar Binay as one of those who paid millions to win. How was it supposedly done? According to this faceless, nameless (and apparently evidence-less) person, the “players used pre-programmed compact flash (CF) cards and pre-shaded ballots” to send “data via the PCOS machines to the central server of the Comelec three minutes ahead of certain precincts’ transmission, blocking the transmission from the real PCOS machines.”... MORE   Source:  The Daily Tribune URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100524com7.html

COMMENTARY EDITORIAL A rush to Malacañang FRONTLINE Remaining the same FEATURE After the burning of Bangkok, shocked residents return DIE HARD III Computer forensics on CF cards FEATURE At Dubai eatery, ‘ship of the desert’ makes burger the king HE SAYS Reality and fiction SHE SAYS PCOS ruckus