Transparent Elections

Introduction

In the last 40 years or so, Philippine elections on the national and local level have been the subject of much controversy. Elections have been marred by various degrees of violence, vote buying, voter disenfranchisement, fraud and cheating during the tallying of votes at the precinct level to the canvassing at the municipal, provincial, and national levels. During the earlier years, much attention was paid to cheating taking place during the actual voting and tallying of votes at the precinct level, otherwise referred to as retail cheating. These were addressed by vigilance of non-partisan groups and political party representatives who fielded volunteers in precincts and voting centers to watch the counting of votes. Copies of Election Returns were given to the dominant party, dominant opposition, and accredited citizens arm. In recent years focus has shifted to more massive forms of cheating taking place during tabulation, officially termed as canvassing, at different levels between the precinct and national levels. The term “dagdag – bawas” was popularized to describe the wholesale tampering of election results to favor one candidate over another.

From these seemingly insurmountable problems rose the clamor from different sectors for the automation of elections as the solution to end the country’s election-related problems. Several attempts have been made in the last few years to implement a pilot and supposedly national automated election process but these attempts themselves were riddled with even more controversy.

It has also become clear that election automation must address the issue of voter confidence. The electorate needs assurance that the votes that have been cast are counted and canvassed properly so that, post-election, questions on a winning candidate’s mandate to occupy his or her elected position can be answered with the votes themselves and with testimonies from the public who actually witnessed the counting. It is therefore imperative that automated elections must, above all else, be transparent. Because elections are an expression of the people’s will, transparency requires that any citizen be allowed to “audit” the accuracy of the total votes reported at any level of the canvassing process.

In late 2007, a group of concerned citizens designed what they believe to be a transparent, implementable and cost-effective solution to achieve the level of automation that would address the needs of the Filipino people for a fair and open election process and would meet logistical, legal and cultural requirements. The solution has been named the Open Election System (OES) and combines the manual process of voting and tallying of results at the precinct level with a fast, reliable and most importantly, a transparent and auditable automated canvassing and tabulation system.

This primer provides an overview of the Open Election System and explains why its proponents believe that it is the best automated solution for the country and strongly recommend its implementation for the 2010 elections.