Arroyo on Villar (2)
BY LITO BANAYO
For every glitch, there’s a fix
‘For every technical glitch, there is a technical fix.’
REPORTS of alleged importation of thousands of devices capable of jamming the electronic transmission of the May 10 results from voting machines at polling places to the Comelec central tabulating center smell like a red herring.
Jamming the cellular telephone systems of all three local companies tapped by the Comelec might be technically feasible. We could not imagine any group, however, mounting such an operation nationwide – 5,000 jammers are supposed to have already arrived – without being exposed.
There’s one exception, of course, and that is the state. Even in this case, the organizational and logistical requirements could hardly ensure the projects’ secrecy before, during and after the operation.
The Comelec’s claim that even if the jamming is initially successful, the voting machines have redundancies that will in the end enable the machines to send the tallies forward to the central tabulating center is also supported by experts.
The system adopted by Comelec may be overpriced, but there is ground to believe that it will work as advertised.
The purported possible jamming should not distract the Comelec, the parties and the public from the real problems surrounding automated elections. Last week’s field testing of the machines has already demonstrated the kinks in the system. A machine in Pasig failed to read four out of 10 sample ballots. It was also unable to transmit the results even after shifting from network to network.
These are technical glitches that the supplier of the machines hopefully can correct in time. After all, for every technical glitch, there is a technical fix. It is still three months to Election Day, enough time to debug the system.
What is worrisome is the delay in the delivery of the machines and in the training of the people on the ground. Smartmatic, the contractor-supplier, has given the assurance it can meet the timetable. Comelec too has said the training schedule has been pushed back but can be undertaken within the time-line.
This is where attention should be focused – making sure Smartmatic and Comelec deliver – not on conspiracies to jam or hack the automated voting system.