Election Automation (Technology VS. Itself)

Campaigns have officially started for the elections this coming May. Infomercials have been aired now on television, posters and flyers have already been scattered and posted and distributedNot only with that which we must look after. The first ever automated election shall happen in the history of Philippine politics. Yes, there will surely be a lot of changes with the system (counting procedures, voting instructions, and so on). People believe that the coming election will be reliable than the previous elections the country had. Of course, as a voter gives his/her ballot, the counting machine automatically counts the number of shaded circles it has, and automatically sets the counting up in an accumulated manner, in such a way that counting and tallying are done simultaneously.

However, in my own opinion, even though the method of election has surely improved, I still see some leakages in it, and worse, it may even create anomalies which may put the country into a state of disorder, which I pray that it will not happen at all costs. Technology is the reason why the automation of elections was born, and technology, may also be the reason for this election automation to mess itself up. I've heard news lately on some threats to definitely terminate the operation of the counting machines during the time of the election. Placing it in terms of a metaphorical statement, this is a battle between TECHNOLOGY AND ITSELF.

1. Hacking

• Lately, news reports have been telling that some government websites have been hacked by people said to be destined in Indonesia. Government websites should have the full protection from being hacked, as to not alter the arrangement, the content, and even the presence of very important files, especially those who have confidential files. Even though I don't know what the real intention of the hackers are, I thought that, if they can easily hack those government websites, how much more could they hack the servers that contain the election tally? Since it is electronic, changing it manually will be a hard problem, so surely, they'll alter it electronically. Moreover, since the machine is the one which is counting the votes, the operators may not be aware of the counting, and since hacking may be done, they may alter the counting, even though the operator of the machine processes a paper which contains the counting. The hackers may have changed that already.

2. Signal Jammers

• This is one very threatening item for me. I may not have the knowledge of how these gadgets work, but seeing it in a simpler sense, these jammers are a big instrument for altering the elections. They may use those jammers, to surely cut off the signal that will terminate the sending of the election results to COMELEC. I'm not sure about this other situation, but maybe it will be possible, that these jammers might divert signals from the counting machines to their own computers or receivers, then change information on the data they've receive, and send these instead to COMELEC servers. The jammers may act as a second staton that will bring information from the machines to them, then to COMELEC servers.

As of now, these are what are reported as some of the threats that might happen during the automated elections. Who knows, there might be someone who is already preparing a destructive program that could manipulate not just the results of the election, but also alter the program that operates the machine. Well, we don't know, since technology is improving as time passes by. In my opinion, let's suppose that there are people who really wanted to alter the election. For me, these are some of the changes that they might execute:

• Let the counting machine ONLY count the votes which belong to a particular candidate, and ignore the votes that belong to other candidates.
• Double the counting of votes of a candidate (make the counting machine tally 2 votes for a candidate instead of 1)

We don't know what might happen next. I've read a news article before that hackers were able to get through tht electronic security of the Pentagon, which I know, has the tightest security. That's technology- we don't know what it will bring next. It can create a new thing, and it can make the impossible to be possible. We don't know what the next generation technology can even do with our everyday lives. And I hope no one will use this technology for those sneaky plans. Of course, I will be having the first time to vote for national elections, and it is a privilege to experience in my first time to vote, the first try of the automated elections. Everyone wanted their lives to be prosperous, and through their votes, the results shall dictate what will happen next to the country for six years of service of the newly elected leaders.

-neofrostmourne-
February 10, 2010