2016 Election – Bong Bong Marcos
Essay Preview: 2016 Election – Bong Bong Marcos
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1. List down for you are the five major issues arising from the VP vote count.
During the canvassing of votes by Commission on Elections (COMELEC) for vice president, issues surfaced but none or close to nothing for president. Bong Bong Marcos said in his privilege speech last May 23, 2016 that after Marlon Garcia of Smartmatic “cosmetically” changed the script of the Transparency Server to correct the spelling of candidates’ names with the letter “Ñ”, his votes started to slow down and the votes for Leni Robredo started to accelerate at an unprecedented and linear rate of 45,000 votes for every additional 1 percent of votes counted. Bong Bong Marcos also questioned the credibility of Marlon Garcia as he is the same person who was charged with electoral sabotage during 2013 elections. He said that it is possible that the computer programming change opened the windows for viruses such as Trojan Horse, Worms and Time Bombs to attack the computer system and networks. Additionally, there are alleged election offenses that were committed during election such as rampant vote-buying, pre-shaded ballots were found by the Police in an abandoned warehouse in Alaminos, Pangasinan. There were also unused SD cards were found in a trash can in Kabangkalan, Negros Occidental. Bong Bong Marcos also said in his speech that his camp received reports that candidates used information and communications technology (ICT) companies to boost their chances in winning the automated elections by giving the candidates access to official voters’ database and “magic laptops,” which could tap into the COMELEC’s main server.
2. How VCM works and its security features. What makes the claims of either candidates credible or not worth believing around cheating in the VCMs.
The core of the automated election system (AES) is the election management system (EMS), which sets up the automation of the polls and manages election-related data. The EMS imports pre-election data files, like geographical subdivisions, voting jurisdictions, number of registered voters, candidate details, and information on the members of the board of election inspectors (BEI). It also defines and prepares ballot templates for each town and city nationwide. In addition, the EMS creates location-specific configuration files for the voting machines and canvassing centers, and generates report templates for the election results. The ballot designs and configuration files are created by a program called an Election Event Designer (EED), while an Election Programming Station (EPS) loads the configuration files into compact flash (CF) cards and “iButton” security keys. These “iButtons” are used by the BEIs to activate precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines also known as vote counting machines (VCMs). Deployed in each of the nearly-80,000 clustered precincts nationwide, the PCOS machines scan the ballots then count the ovals that voters have shaded to vote for their preferred national and local candidates.
The PCOS machines are operated by software provided by Dominion Voting Systems and have been licensed to Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp since the 2010 polls. This software, as well as those used by other components of the AES, shall go through source code reviews and certifications. It should be conducted by an international certification entity. The source codes should also be opened to accredited local groups and organizations. When polls close on Election Day, the PCOS machines transmit the vote counts – also known as election returns or ERs – to the different servers and canvassing centers in the AES. The consolidation/canvassing system (CCS) receives and processes these ERs. The software used by the CCS, called the real-time election information system (REIS), reads incoming data and canvasses the votes. Meanwhile, the electronic results transmission service (ERTS) handles the actual transmission of votes. The main channel is through public telecommunications networks, with transmission via satellite as back-up. Modems were used with the PCOS machines to help transmit ERs, and installed in canvassing centers to receive ERs. From the PCOS machines, the ERs are transmitted to the central server, to a transparency server, and to the municipal board of canvassers (MBOC). From the MBOC, the results are transmitted to the provincial board of canvassers (PBOC), where the results are collated and then transmitted to