The Canary in a Coal Mine—Dry Run for Massive Electronic Cheating in 2022 Elections

THE CANARY IN A COAL MINE—DRY RUN FOR MASSIVE CHEATING IN THE 2022 ELECTIONS

Degrading the integrity of the 2019 elections prepares the ground for more extensive subversion in the upcoming 2022 elections.

The outcome of the 2022 elections is critical to Duterte because he wants to evade the accountability that will be pursued against him should an administration less than friendly be elected into office.

A critical state of affairs exists even now because by the time of the 2022 elections, all seven Comelec commissioners will be appointed by Duterte:

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The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will be packed with President Rodrigo Duterte's appointees by the time he steps down in 2022, with all 7 poll commissioners handpicked by the Chief Executive just in time for the next presidential election.

Duterte has appointed two Comelec commissioners whose terms will last until February 2025: ccommissioners Marlon Casquejo and Socorro Inting. Five commissioners are scheduled to retire between February 2020 and February 2022. The elections happen in May 2022.

Below are the vacancies for 2020 up to 2022, in chronological order:

Replacement for commissioner Luie Tito Guia (retiring February 2020)

Replacement for commissioner Al Parreño (retiring February 2020)

Replacement for poll chair Sheriff Abas (retiring February 2022)

Replacement for commissioner Rowena Guanzon (retiring February 2022)

Replacement for commissioner Antonio Kho (retiring February 2022)

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See: https://www.rappler.com/nation/238070-only-duterte-appointees-run-comelec-2022-elections

The last 2019 elections, Comelec ruled in favor of the administration and its political allies. The article below, “Election Blues,” says:

“…the Comelec…ruled questionably on critical matters, such as patent premature campaigning, or the run of spouses to represent two adjacent districts in the House of Representatives, or the scandalous designation of the Nacionalista Party, which is allied with the ruling PDP-Laban, as the minority party.”

At the time, two Comelec commissioners—Casquejo and Inting—had been appointed by Duterte. Critically, before the 2019 elections Duterte had successfully pressured Andres Bautista to resign. Afterwards, Duterte appointed Abas as Comelec Chairperson.

When all Comelec commissioners are Duterte appointees, we can expect more questionable and objectionable rulings, blatantly partisan and with worse outcomes, highly disadvantageous and unfair to the political opposition, in the course of the 2022 elections. Citizen watchdogs will be either eliminated or rendered inutile by their lack of access to indicative data. See the case of Namfrel in “Alarming Development” below.

Because Comelec oversees the operation of the electronic elections, the compromised political position of Comelec will be the key, absolutely so, to accomplishing the massive electronic cheating that the administration will put in place in order to subvert the results of the 2022 elections in favor of Duterte’s allies.

Electronic tampering with election results is indeed an easy thing to do. See “Was There Tampering and Manipulation?” below.

Vote-buying and other irregularities will simply work as mopping-up operations in this cunningly (high level of intelligence not required, just the complete absence of scruples) constructed plan to subvert election results.

The formula to massively cheat in the 2022 elections is simple:

- Compromise Comelec integrity

- Tamper with electronic election results—a very easy task when it is done with insider access

ALARMING DEVELOPMENT

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 09:07 AM May 08, 2019

On Friday, just over a week before the May 13 elections, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) announced an alarming development: It was withdrawing as an accredited watchdog for the polls, after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) turned down its request to access key election data.

Namfrel said the Comelec had denied (or, in the words of its spokesperson James Jimenez, “simply not granted”) its request that its election website receive information it needed, among them election returns, information on candidates’ spending, the voters’ list, the number of precincts and related precinct statistics.

The Namfrel website, the election watchdog said, was designed to do a full audit of the election exercise by analyzing data, highlighting possible “red flags” in the system and addressing irregularities.

Access to such data would have allowed Namfrel to monitor and independently track the authenticity of election results, and allow it to provide the public near real-time information on the elections.

The Comelec’s refusal to grant that request means that, aside from being given the 27th copy of election results generated by the vote-counting machines, Namfrel’s role would now be limited only to participating in the random manual audit, which involves the manual inspection and counting of ballots from randomly selected clustered precincts.

…the Comelec appeared to have leaned on more basic grounds in rejecting Namfrel’s request: Having election results coming from two sources could confuse the public, it said. “What happens when you have two competing sources of election information?” asked Jimenez.

Why, you allow the public to compare the sources and the reliability of the information, for starters: What is the source’s record of integrity? And how near or far apart are the data from the two sides, which should indicate gaps or outright irregularities that may need to be addressed?

Shouldn’t transparency be paramount in elections, after all? Isn’t that precisely why elections need an independent citizens’ arm and election watchdog—not to echo official results, but to go through them with a fine-tooth comb to check for inconsistencies, oversight errors and possible lapses, and ensure that the public get the most accurate information available at any one time?

Instead of canceling each other out, having two sets of counting would serve as a countercheck or validation of the official tally; in short, two pair of eyes to independently vet the results. What could be more ideal, especially with a midterm elections that may be the most crucial in years?

…During the snap elections of 1985, 30 Comelec computer technicians walked out of their jobs, bothered by the yawning discrepancy between the figures on their screen and those on the official tabulation board. The walkout—proof of the poll body’s complicity with the ruling party—contributed to the spark that later became the 1986 people power revolt.

… More than an issue of transparency, access (or the lack thereof) to election data by an independent citizens’ arm is a matter of basic rights — the people’s right to know that their will via the ballot box is not being thwarted or tampered with in any way. Why is the Comelec seemingly eager to run that risk all of a sudden?

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121223/alarming-development#ixzz6MGkvfUes

ELECTION BLUES

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM May 15, 2019

How, in this fragile democracy, could it happen that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) was unable to transmit voting results on its transparency server for seven hours on the night of Election Day?

The question continues to rankle despite the official belated explanation, thus exacerbating the occurrence of snafus that modern societies on the planet would deem unthinkable and unacceptable in any electoral exercise.

It was bad enough that, earlier on, the Comelec appeared at a loss to command the situation, or, if it did, ruled questionably on critical matters, such as patent premature campaigning, or the run of spouses to represent two adjacent districts in the House of Representatives, or the scandalous designation of the Nacionalista Party, which is allied with the ruling PDP-Laban, as the minority party.

In the May 13 midterm elections, despite the passage of three years after the 2016 presidential election, and with billions of pesos at its disposal to act on problems or avert looming ones, the Comelec was again confronted with the goblins of Philippine elections: assassinations (although the number is said to have been considerably lessened) and other acts of violence by armed men, as well as vote-buying — what should have been, like measles or malaria, plagues of the past.

On top of the seven-hour period when the Comelec’s transparency server transmitted nothing to watchdog organizations and the media — inevitably throwing suspicion at the rout of the opposition slate — glitches have been added to Philippine elections’ guns, goons and gold.

As many as 961 out of 85,000 vote-counting machines (VMCs) and 1,165 secure digital (SD) cards “experienced issues,” lamented Commissioner Rowena Guanzon.

These kinks in what should by now be a smooth voting process provoked National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections secretary general Eric Alvia to wonder aloud on TV: How many votes were compromised with the transmission of voting data hampered by defective VCMs and SD cards?

And, as though to indicate how far we’ve sunk as a nation, vote-buying reached new highs on the run-up to the midterm polls and on Election Day itself.

The widespread commission of the election offense, as reflected in the 441 reported apprehensions made by police in Metro Manila and other regions nationwide, was remarkable, highlighted by such anecdotal data as a rural bank running out of bank notes; staple wires and brown envelopes in short supply; and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program serving as distribution base.

It’s a disgrace, mirroring the extent to which candidates for public office would go to gain votes and the apparently infinite ways they can get their money back and more. It mirrors as well the level of need of the destitute — and in fact even those whose existence is hardly hand-to-mouth.

…vote-buying was encouraged by no less than President Duterte as he spoke at the campaign rally of the administration’s Hugpong ng Pagbabago on Friday night, in the process assailing the Comelec for its “unrealistic” regulations against politicians doling anything of value, in cash or in kind, during a campaign.

In the event they were accosted by authorities, he was quoted as saying, Hugpong supporters should “just tell them you took the money, not for the vote, but because you want your fare to get home.” In subsequent remarks, the President said vote-buying had become the norm, that it was “integral” to elections in this country.

…The amounts used to buy votes reportedly ranged from P200 to P2,000. Some P2 million has been recovered in antivote-buying operations, according to Philippine National Police Gen. Oscar Albayalde.

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121372/election-blues#ixzz6MGmxlPFv

WAS THERE TAMPERING AND MANIPULATION?

By: Solita Collas-Monsod - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:12 AM May 18, 2019

Is it possible that there was tampering in the 2019 elections and manipulation of the results? I asked a couple of IT experts. The answer was a resounding yes. It is possible. Whether it actually happened is another matter.

…The Commission on Elections (Comelec), and most of the public, seem to think that whether cheating actually happened depends on the results of  the Election Return (ER) coming from the clustered precincts as compared with the transmitted results. If they match, there could not have been any tampering.

This conclusion would be wrong, says a report to the Secretariat of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee (JCOC ) on the Automated Election System (AES) Investigating the Conduct of the 2016 Elections. The statement comes out on p. 17 of the 27-page report after the author, Jeff Ian C. Dy, had given a “hypothetical” example of an attack on the vote-counting machines with matching ER and transmitted results: “Thus, it is fallacious to assert that if the ER and the transmitted results matched, the election results were not tampered (sic).”

Who is Jeff Dy? An IT expert who used to work with Smartmatic.

Dy makes the point that tampering would have to be an inside job—which means people inside Smartmatic-TIM, or the Comelec itself.

…The question is, how can election manipulation happen?

According to Lito Averia, an IT and election expert, one way is to tamper with the “configuration files.” It works this way: A ballot is aligned horizontally and vertically, and the coordinates where the eggs to be shaded are placed, are then assigned to candidates. In our ballots, you can see the eggs beside the candidates’ names, and those are what you mark. If the configuration files are not tampered with, the files should reflect what are on the ballot.

But the candidate’s name on the ballot may not be what is reflected on the configuration files.  Say that location A1 in the ballot is assigned to Acebedo. To reduce his vote, the configuration file A1 is assigned to Salcedo, a weaker candidate, and vice versa. When the votes are counted, Acebedo’s recorded votes would be less than his actual votes.

Who oversees the assignments in the configuration files? Supposedly the Comelec, who looks over the shoulders of Smartmatic-TIM. Inside job.

Another way is to pre-shade the ballot (with invisible ink, which can be read by the VCM), betting that the ballot is not filled up by the voter, as is usually the case. Inside job. This is where the extra names in a ballot receipt come from. Voters should really scrutinize their receipts (I did not, I forgot my glasses).

In investigating the 2019 elections, the Senate should also inquire why Namfrel’s (National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections) request to the Comelec in December 2018 was not answered until the end of April 2019, and why Namfrel was not granted its request to access all the logs involved in the election process. This was asked to facilitate the “forensics” needed to determine where the irregularities occurred, if any.

I believe in the integrity of Namfrel, and its being effectively marginalized in this elections is, on its face, questionable.

solita_monsod@yahoo.com

Read more: https://opinion.inquirer.net/121427/was-there-tampering-and-manipulation#ixzz6MH2ejGpY

COMELEC VOUCHES FOR VCMS; PPCRV AUDIT SHOWS ‘NOTHING UNUSUAL’

By: Carla P. Gomez, Melvin Gascon - @inquirerdotnet

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:14 AM May 19, 2019

BACOLOD CITY, NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Saturday vouched for the accuracy of the vote-counting machines (VCMs) used in Monday’s midterm elections and said the results of the independent audit of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) would bear the poll body out.

Early results of the review of the electronic logs of vote transmission showed “nothing unusual” that would support allegations of manipulation of results, the PPCRV, a church-based election watchdog, said on Saturday.

PPCRV chair Myla Villanueva said data from the Comelec’s transmission server had not showed any signs that vote transmissions were tampered with, even during the seven-hour interruption in the release of early poll results on Monday night.

“So far our team of experts have not seen anything that is a cause for concern. What we have seen is that data from the [VCMs] continued to come in even during those seven hours that we were clueless as to what was going on,” Villanueva told reporters.

…Activity logs

On Friday, the PPCRV’s team of IT experts began sifting through volumes of activity logs, with special attention to the seven-hour period on Monday evening when its tally board stopped receiving data beamed from VCMs across the country.

According to William Emmanuel Yu, a PPCRV board member and IT expert, early results of the transparency server log’s audit showed normal activity even after the broadcasting of data stalled around 6:14 p.m. on Monday.

He showed reporters a graph comparing the rate of data transmission from the close of voting on Monday to those of the past three automated elections in 2010, 2013 and 2016. He said it followed the usual curve.

Yu said this could indicate that, contrary to the fears of some sectors, data continued to be transmitted to the transparency server during the seven-hour blackout.

He supported earlier statements by the Comelec’s IT experts who said that the problem was caused by a “Java error,” which refers to a programming language used.

“That, for us, is the most feasible, although that is too generic; Comelec has to provide more details,” Yu said.

Namfrel challenge

The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) has challenged the Comelec to addresss “transparency issues” that it said marred the country’s fourth automated elections.

At a press briefing on Saturday, Namfrel urged the poll body to disclose the location of its central server data and asked why it could not provide public access to open election data—or “data hidden in the machines that could reveal election-related irregularities (or the lack thereof).”

“Security by obscurity has no place in our elections. We should understand how our votes are being counted,” said Namfrel chair Gus Lagman.

Lagman said “transparency is lost” in automated counting. He suggested manual counting at the precinct level that will then go through automated transmission.

“The VCMs are three years old, will we still use it in 2022? We have a very short election cycle and there are a lot of issues [with the current system],” said Lito Averia, national council member of Namfrel.

Tindig Pilipinas coalition on Friday called on the poll body to explain what it said were numerous irregularities that raised “questions on the integrity” of the elections.

“We call for complete accountability of the Comelec. We demand that a thorough investigation of all these anomalies be conducted. We insist that we be given irrefutable proof that our votes were properly counted,” Jozy Acosta-Nisperos, of The Silent Majority said, in a statement.

—With reports from Jaymee T. Gamil, Mariejo S. Ramos and Patricia Denise M. Chiu

Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1120734/comelec-vouches-for-vcms-ppcrv-audit-shows-nothing-unusual#ixzz6MH8VqFKc