PCOS machines can be used for cheating

EDITORIAL

The recent spate of gross errors by the PCOS machine has revealed “an easy way to shave votes from targeted candidates, by making minor changes in the PCOS configuration file”.

This, according to Halalang Marangal (HALAL) Secretary-general Roberto Verzola who warned the use of PCOS machines could derail the May 10 due to mismatch between the PCOS configuration and the ballot layout for the local candidates. The ballot layout for the local candidates was reportedly changed from single-spaced to double-spaced, but the PCOS configuration was not changed to account for the new locations of the double-spaced ovals.

From the perspective of the PCOS, Verzola said, the ovals were misaligned. Ballot printing had changed the alignment of ovals due to the modified layout, but the PCOS was still looking for the ovals based on their original alignment. The PCOS couldn't find most of the ovals anymore, resulting to missed votes in mock elections.

“Smartmatic simply needs to adjust the coordinates of the ovals for the local candidates, to conform with the modified ballot layout, to correct the misalignment. This will require changing the configuration file containing the coordinates. I agree that, properly done, this would solve this particular problem,” Verzola said. “However, this can be exploited by cheats to do target cheating – mostly through vote-shaving – with the PCOS machine,” Verzola warned.

He explained how: “All that needs to be done is to slightly change the coordinates of the oval associated with a targeted candidate, so that the printed oval on the ballot for that candidate becomes slightly misaligned with respect to the new coordinates on the configuration file.

The larger the misalignment, the greater the possibility of missing the mark on the oval – this is called a false negative or a 'bawas'. Of course, the cheat would not make such a big change that the PCOS machine will miss the mark entirely – a consistently zero count would be too obvious and easily detected. But a slightly misaligned oval might be missed occasionally, say one in every ten marks, leading to a 10% shaving of votes for that particular targetted candidate.”

The Commission on Elections must make sure that this kind of cheating doesn't happen. But then, the Comelec had been accused of making sure everything would go wrong on election day to perpetrate the longer stay of the people in Malacanang and their cohorts. Will the Comelec live up to its mandate of ensuring that the genuine and true voice of the people would be heard on election day? For sure, the people would know if the electoral body would live up to its constitutional mandate of go down in history as engineering the most crooked elections in Philippine history.