It might come as a surprise to local readers to know that actual voting for the May 2010 national elections have already started for many Filipinos abroad. In many of our embassies and consulates, overseas citizens have already cast their choices for president, vice president, senators and party-list. Some voting centers like Hong Kong and Singapore are using the same Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that are to be deployed throughout the country for the automated election system (AES).

This offers us a glimpse of possible problems that might occur in the operation of these machines on election day itself. According to poll watchers and Kontra Daya volunteers based in Hong Kong, several glitches happened on the second day of voting for overseas Filipinos. There were two instances of breakdown in the PCOS machines as documented by the Special Board of Election Inspectors (SBEI) in China’s HK Special Administrative Region.

From the accounts of Gabriela Hong Kong poll watchers seven filled out ballots were initially not accepted by the PCOS machine used by the SBEI No. 15. A new PCOS machine was brought in to replace the malfunctioning one. After several attempts, only the test ballot and one other was being accepted by the machine. The remaining six ballots were being rejected.

Another new machine was brought in but it still rejected the ballots. The IT personnel of the Comelec learned that the first PCOS machine was damp and they had to shut it down to dry it. After it was turned back on, the machine already accepted the six other ballots that it initially rejected. In another case in SBEI No. 16, the machine worked 30 minutes after it started rejecting ballots once the IT personnel fixed the PCOS machine.

News reports have attributed the breakdown of the PCOS machines in Hong Kong to humid weather and condensation in the PCOS machines from the ballots. A Smartmatic representative assured the Comelec and media that this will not happen in the Philippines since it is much more humid in Hong Kong than here in the Philippines.

Humidity is the moisture content in the air. It is the amount of water vapour in the air with 100 percent being the maximum. The average relative humidity in Hong Kong and the Philippines are similar for May.

Under conditions of high relative humidity, people sweat and feel discomfort. For materials such as paper, its fibers absorb water and cause wrinkling. For electronic devices, excess moisture can cause problems ranging from electrical shorts to sensors failing. This is the reason why most computers and devices are rated only to work within a certain tolerance range for temperature and humidity.

Although it was the storage of the ballots in an air-conditioned room prior to use in a humid condition that was blamed, the range of environmental conditions in the country—from wet to dry to cold to humid—could cause problems in the untested automated election system. Kontra Daya expects similar scenarios to take place in areas in the Philippines known for their humidity. Polling precincts in the Philippines are normally not air-conditioned rooms and the PCOS machine will be running for 11 hours.

At best, a malfunctioning PCOS machine would be replaced by a backup. Comelec says that if the machine fails without a backup, it can go to the next nearest voting center for the counting. However, these will cause delays especially with the large volume of voters for a clustered precinct. As we have shown in previous discussions, the default voting process itself is fraught with points where bottlenecks can occur: in the BEI chairperson, the PCOS machine and now in the UV verification step. A new process in the voting, the manual scanning of the UV marks, has been added after the Comelec shut down the UV scanners in the PCOS machines.

What can we do as citizens during election day? Kontra Daya has ten tips for voters on May 10, 2010. Ranging from reminders to find your assigned precinct early and ensuring that the ballot and machines are clean and marked correctly, the election watchdog group also reminds against flying voters and the presence of the military and police within the voting area. The full list can be found in their website www.kontradaya.org. As with natural disasters, vulnerabilities may exist but people can prepare against these by addressing the root causes of these vulnerabilities before disaster strikes. Another way is to enhance the capabilities of the people to respond to these disasters by preparing them beforehand. It is in this spirit that we need to be vigilant and guard against fraud during the first automated elections in our history.