Incomplete reporting by the Comelec

At this link you will find the National Board of Canvassers' resolution 10-13 of June 5, 2013 officially proclaiming the results of the senatorial race: http://www.comelec.gov.ph/uploads/Elections/2013natloc/res/nboc_res_001013.pdf

A few questions begged to be asked:

1.  How many established and clustered precincts did these results come from?

2.  What is the total number of voters who voted?

3.  Of this number (in 2), how many voted for senators?

4.  What is the average number of candidates voted?

5.  How many over-voted for senators?

6.  How many ballots were spoiled or uncounted (this is referred to as a spoiled ballot rate)?

In this day and age of technology and electronics in elections, the figures would certainly help:

1) enhance the credibility of the election by making the results audit-able;

2) inform the political parties, candidates, academe, and voter outreach programs about how might voters view the candidates and why voters do not (historically) vote for 12 senators; and

3) guide candidates who wish to lodge a protest if results could be overturned if over-voted, blank votes or undervoted, and rejected or spoiled ballots are reviewed.

For the May polls, there were 52,014,846 [http://bit.ly/ZEd52D, Comelec] voters, and 39,898,992 voted (turnout of 75.72 percent) [http://bit.ly/15W1D7D, Rappler]. The Comelec tallied the total valid votes  for senators at 298,625,797. So the fill up rate is 7.6.

How would all the other contests -- party-list, district representatives to Congress, provincial governors, vice-governors, provincial councilors, mayors, vice-mayors, and local councilors -- look like if all the figures above were reported alongside the results of the voting?

Comelec is remiss in their duty in reporting election results.  Seriously, I think the Comelec needs to just be serious about their work.  What do you think?

Report on the Conduct of the Random Manual Audit

Below is an excerpt from the full report, which is viewable from this link:  http://bit.ly/YR6XoY

On page 7:

Some Questions for the Comelec and Smartmatic

What could explain these error rates?  What possible underlying root causes might   explain these?  How should the candidates and political parties interpret these discrepancies?  How are the various RMA results consolidated? If a variance of 16.67 percent, similar to the one in this RMA, is noted in the 2013 polls, say in the senatorial position, what would the Comelec and Smartmatic do?

How are checks made on the canvassing process?  How will the public or candidates and parties know if the canvass results are accurate?  How should the audit of the canvassing results look like?

Discrepancy Between AES and RMA

Section 13 of the G.I. BEI states that “In the event of  discrepancy between the AES and RMA results still exceeds the allowable margin of ten (10) votes per  candidate per position (emphasis supplied), the RMA committee shall...”.

What does “allowable margin” mean? What is the basis for the “10 votes per candidate per position”?

The Random Manual Audit

Results

The highest error rate registered between the machine-counted and the RMA-appreciated votes is 16.67 percent. The lowest is -1.64 percent. The Commission on Elections (Comelec), through its machine supplier, Smartmatic, guarantees an error rate of 0.005 percent or less.

The photo is from a section of the Comelec’s RMA Minutes/Report (form No. 0916). The forth column (from the right) shows the variance between the machine-counted and the RMA team-appreciated results.

Positions Audited

The audit of the results of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine was done for  40 senatorial posts, 15 district representatives posts, and 12 mayoral posts. Of the total 67 posts audited, 14 of these showed a variance.

Conduct of the RMA

At the close of the polling at 1900h on 02 February 2013, the board of election inspectors transmitted the results of the machine count to three servers, namely: the central server; to the canvassing board of Quezon city; and to the KBP server.  After which the ballot box was  resealed (with packing tape and signed by the board, to make tamper-evident). After the 27 copies of the election returns were printed, the board turned the ballot box over to the RMA team. This was around 2100h, and with the presence of observers and the media.

Immediately after opening the box, the team counted the ballots. They counted 159 in the box. But the election return showed that the machine counted 158 ballots. After a query by the observers and the media, the team revealed that there was one diagnostic ballot that was the first one fed into the machine before the voting started. This ballot was later identified as having a handwritten mark  “diagnostic”, and contained no votes on it.

One of the five-member board read the votes on the ballot, and the one seated beside him checked that the reading was correct. Two members recorded the votes on the audit returns. Another did the same using the tally board that was posted on the wall for the observers to track the progress of the counting.

Tallying of 67 posts from 158 ballots took five hours, with the RMA closed at 0200h the following day.

The audit was conducted after the mock polls held at the University of the Philippines Integrated School in Diliman, Quezon city.  The Philippine elections scheduled on 10 May 2013, will be the second such exercise where the PCOS of Smartmatic, Inc., will be used.

Photos (unannotated) of the RMA are available for download at this link: http://goo.gl/zLWtE.

(About the author: Telibert is a member of the national council of the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (namfrel.com.ph). The organization was formed in 1983 and is recognized as the first in the world to field volunteer domestic election observers. He served as Namfrel's executive director from 1996 to 2003, and became a member of the board in 2009. He has served in various international assignments as election observer, organized similar domestic election observer groups in Afghanistan (2004) and in Timor Leste (2006). He has also served as resident country director in Timor Leste and in Papua New Guinea (2012) for the National Democratic Institute (ndi.org).)

Pagdayeg, Pagpangayo ug Pasaylo ug Pag-ampo

Praise, Seeking Forgiveness and Prayer

This piece is written in my Cebuano (my dialect) during our family retreat in celebration and thanksgiving for my parents' 50 the wedding anniversary.  It is accessible at: http://bit.ly/S5Tnb2 or http://bit.ly/U6byxg.

Global Citizens: Take Action

It does not matter that I am not Papua New Guinean. As a world citizen, I signed the ActNow petition against the Solwara 1 [http://www.actnowpng.org/action].

Solwara, (Tok Piksin for salt/sea water) is the first deep sea mining in the world and it will be pioneered in the province of New Ireland. Canadian-registered Nautilus Minerals, Inc., (nautilusminerals.com / cares.nautilusminerals.com) points in its September 18 ad in The National that it is "the first company to explore the ocean floor for polymetalic seafloor massive sulphide deposits and is developing its first project at Solwara 1, in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea, where it is aiming to produce copper and gold". It claims that the government has granted all the necessary environmental permits, and in January 2011, the mining lease.

Why PNG? The Nautilus ad in the Post-Courier on September 19 cites that Solwara 1 was discovered in 1996 and "is the best studied seafloor copper-gold deposits in the world". And because it is in "protected..calm" Bismark Sea, "the location is ideal for safe operations". So why Solawara 1? The "high grades [of materials] mean less waste created to produce the same amount of metal as similar mines on land". Finally, "being offshore there is also limited social disturbance as no people will need to be relocated from their homes".

Convinced?

I am not. First, there are a good number of extractives currently in play in Papua New Guinea -- gold and nickel mines, and liquified natural gas -- some have operated close to two decades and some, like the gas projects, are yet to go online.

Absent is a strong reason to believe that the polity has learned from the African resource curse or the Dutch disease.

As it stands now, the population and government expenditure are growing, but basic infrastructure and services, and literacy need very serious attention. Over the year, GDP has increased but living conditions have not improved. Government spending for the past 10 years have retracted to more centralization in favor of Waigani, the seat of the national government. The National Research Institute recently pointed that 90 percent of spending is done there while very little has been devolved to the local level.


Second, and as a friend had pointed out, some provinces are considering going the way of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. They would, therefore, need their own extractives to fend, and this move seems to communicate the structural failure in the distribution of gains from the extractives. Will we see PNG fragment like blocks of concession areas demarcated for resource exploration, A layer on top of their already 800 different tribes and languages?

There are no convincing reasons yet that income from the extractives would be effectively and efficiently used to alleviate the quality of life of the seven million. So why another one now?

Third, if Nautilus deems the process safe, why doesn't it venture into the seabeds of developed countries. There the environmental regulations are robust, the law enforcers are equally knowledgeable and as technically qualified as the experts that Nautilus could afford, and voters hold their government accountable. And as cohabitant of this planet, we would be, in effect, better protected.

So why in PNG?

Just as I was leaving the country in October, Act Now submitted a petition to the government that had 25,000 names in support of stopping Nautilus from proceeding.


Why should you and I care? Because we are one organism and the impact of the scarring the earth will affect us. So, too, the structural inability of PNG to alleviate the conditions of its people.

Now, what (more) should you and I do?