ACT Teachers Partylist raises poll automation concerns anew after COMELEC’s transmission woes
The ACT Teachers Partylist raised fresh concerns about the Commission on
Election’s readiness to implement poll automation for the May 2010 elections
after a failed field test in two schools in Taguig this morning.
At a public demonstration held this morning, COMELEC officials struggled for
several hours to transmit mock election results to COMELEC’s central server in
Intramuros from Precinct Count Optical Scan machines located in two different
public schools in Taguig City, to no avail. According to reports, transmission
failed because the 3 major telecommunications companies—Smart, Globe, and
Sun—had weak mobile signals in the area. The COMELEC’s Automated Election System
(AES) will rely mainly on private mobile networks for the transmission of
election results.
“We anticipated that the wireless transmission of election results will present
the biggest challenges, given the uneven state of the country’s
telecommunications infrastructure,” said ACT Teachers partylist president
Antonio Tinio. “But it’s particularly dismaying to learn that the Automated
Election System may fail even in the very heart of Metro Manila, where it’s safe
to assume that the infrastructure is most developed. This doesn’t bode well for
the coming elections.”
Tinio called on the COMELEC to immediately present to the public the results of
the nationwide site survey conducted by Smartmatic-TIM to determine the
availability and strength of mobile telecommunications signals for use in the
wireless transmission of election results. “COMELEC must inform the public as
soon as possible about the extent of the challenges with regard to transmission.
Real-time transmission of results was touted as one of the advantages of the
AES, something that could negate traditional methods of election fraud. But it
looks like wireless transmission will prove too difficult in many areas.”
Tinio reiterated the call to provide early and adequate training expressed for
teachers. “Teachers will be in the front lines during elections and are expected
to have mastered the operation of the PCOS machines, including any technical
difficulties that might arise. This can only happen through adequate hands-on
training with the machines at the actual locations where they will be used. How
else can we know if transmission will work in a particular precinct?” #
