Those ACMs – each and every ACM – were tested and passed by our Department of Science and Technology (DOST) with 100 percent accuracy and reliability.

Our obviously political Supreme Court decided, however, based solely on the firm belief that Gloria Arroyo would lose to Fernando Poe Jr., then the most popular person in the Philippines, if the results were known by noon of the next day after the elections. Thus, the SC, in its decision noted that the Comelec had "put at grave risk the holding of credible and peaceful elections by shoddily accepting electronic hardware and software." Thus, GMA (with the help of a couple of Garcis and military operators won in 2004, with the active participation of the Supreme Court), handily won that election.

But that is water under the bridge even if what could very well be the best electoral automatic counting machines for us are sitting in warehouse – forbidden to be used.

(Why do we never learn? Those ACMs are in the exact same situation that the Nuclear Power Plant – that could have solved all our power problems – which was also never used primarily because of politics.)

What is the danger now is that the Comelec is looking at ACMs and other equipment from the United States which even just in their last elections were proven to be unreliable.

From Minnesota, for instance, we have the example of the ES&S M-100, a precinct-based optical scanner. That same scanner was found to have failed pre-election "logic and accuracy testing." The M-100 "reported inconsistent vote totals," such that "the same ballots run through the same machines, yielded different results each time."

Two of Minnesota’s three largest counties (Anoka and Dakota) use the Diebold AccuVote OS scanners to "count" their ballots. That system is the same one seen being hacked via its memory card in the Emmy-nominated HBO documentary "Hacking Democracy."

The Diebold op-scanner was also used in the New Hampshire (NH) primary when pre-election polls and exit polls determined Obama would be the winner, only to see him lose to Hillary Clinton. Obama was found to have won in the 20 percent of NH which counts their ballots by hand. While Clinton won, in the 80 percent of NH that used the Diebold op-scan system which has been proven to be easily hackable.

In fact, Diebold has admitted, in response to a lawsuit by the state of Ohio, that their GEMS central tabulator system routinely drops thousands of votes, without giving notice, while they are being uploaded from memory cards to the main server. That failed tabulator model was used in some 34 states in the last elections in the US.

Because of the use of these machines, in Minnesota the race between Al Franken and Norm Coleman for a Senate seat is going through a recount – because the Diebolds cannot be trusted to give the right totals.

Other Senate races still in question are in Alaska, Georgia and Oregon.

Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens is leading Democratic Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich by 48.2 percent to 46.7 percent. Some 49,000 absentee, early votes and provisional ballots remain to be counted. Alaska uses optical-scan machines made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold) statewide.

Alaska is one of the few places where the Democratic Party actually went to court to fight for transparency successfully suing the state for the release of Diebold databases detailing how voters voted in the 2004 election. Alaska refused to release these because of "security concerns."

In Georgia, incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss seized only 49.9 percent of votes so far, narrowly missing the 50 percent majority that is required in Georgia to avoid a runoff. But, some 50,000 absentee and other ballots are still being counted. Georgia uses AccuVote paperless touch screen machines made by Premier Election Solutions statewide.

Georgia was the first to adopt Diebold’s wholly unverifiable touch-screen systems across the entire state. Maryland which also adopted the paperless system has since decided to replace the system with paper-based optical systems, following scientific report after report warning about failure after failure with those Diebold touch-screen systems.

In Oregon, incumbent Republican Senator Gordon Smith leads Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley by less than 1 percent. Oregon uses mail-in paper ballots statewide. It’s the only state that has gone entirely postal. The delay is simply the result of the manual counting of the "snail mail."

The move to Vote-by-Mail was brought about by problems with touch-screen voting machines.

We have a situation where we have perfectly good ACMs rotting in a warehouse which have been bought and paid for and for which the money already paid will never be returned since the seller delivered on time and passed all the tests prior to being paid. Does the SC decision that these ACMs will not work, despite the certification of the DOST that in fact they work very well, after each machine had been meticulously tested by the DOST negate the reality that the men of science in the DOST are more competent to say what technology or equipment will or will not work than the lawyers who are appointed by GMA as justices of the SC?

Seeing how the present Comelec seems to be charging pell-mell into spending P21 billion on what could well be systems that will fail as they have in America, it seems only right for people to realize where the present Comelec may be headed. I am not even yet speculating on how much of that P21 billion may end up in commissioners’. senators’ or congressmen’s’ pockets. For now, it is enough to advise caution and a lot of technological testing before finally choosing what they will buy.

Among the proofs that they are on the right track would be for them to take the mothballs from those ACMs in the Comelec storeroom and test them against the other suggested systems. And if the SC objects, to hell with the Supreme Court. The revered justices of the court do not have the technical capability to test even just everyday technological equipment such as cell phones and laptops; what more ACMs?