How to cheat 2010 automated elections?

February 27, 2010

Cheating in the 2010 automated elections seems like a lucrative idea. Perhaps this is why as soon as a new law or system is introduced, the first thing that people try to do is to find ways to cheat it.

This kind of raises the question, are Filipinos culturally inclined to cheat?

When number coding was being introduced to reduce traffic, people tried to prevent its implementation and when that didn’t happen, people tried to cheat it by buying another car or getting a fake MMDA exemption.

When new taxes were imposed, people looked for ways to cheat it.

The automation of the 2010 elections wasn’t spared from this.  Almost immediately after the Amended Automated Election Law was signed, people either tried to stop its implementation or find ways to cheat in an election that was automated.

At around the moment that it became certain that the 2010 elections was going to be automated and just prior to the time that the contract for supplying the automated election system was awarded, several groups surfaced and claimed that the automated election system would result in automated electoral fraud.

The funny thing was, there was even a group that claimed that they could hack the automated election system and at that time, the Comelec hadn’t even decided on what kind of automated election system it would use.  It was a rather wild claim and oddly enough, there were columnists and commentators who believed that high tech fraud can be done.

So far, it seems, the automated electoral fraud and hacking conspiracy theorists have all but shut up.  But the coast isn’t clear yet.

There are now groups going around claiming that for a fee, they’ll help provide candidates with a secret winning edge come May 2010.  Presumably, they have some secret trick that candidates can use in order to win and despite the fact that it isn’t a high tech way to go about it, some of the techniques might be somewhat effective.

One group offered the sage advice that cheating in the 2010 polls will no longer be done wholesale but retail.  This means that cheating will be done at the precinct level rather than at the provincial or regional level.  Instead of dag-dag bawas cheating at a national scale, it will be tingi-tingi cheating for those who can afford it.

Here is a list of retail methods of electoral fraud.

DURING THE CASTING OF VOTES

1. Vote buying/selling

2. Padding of the Voters’ list and substitute voting

3. Pre-shading

4. Illiterate and handicap voters

5. Neutralization or negative vote buying

6. Ballot stuffing

7. Deployment of teams of flying voters

8. Disenfranchisement and shaving the voter’s list

9. Goyo-goyo or trickery

10. Fielding of nuisance candidates.

COUNTING

1. Ballot snatching

2. Deliberate error

3. Premature count

CANVASSING

1. Ghost precincts

2. Computer can be pre-loaded with prepared COCs and SOVs.

3.  A master password could be used to control the canvassing computers.

CHEATING TACTICS THAT CAN BE DONE AT ANY STAGE OF THE ELECTION PROCESS:

1. Delaying tactics

2. Terrorism

3. Buying the loyalty of the Poll Watcher or technician

4. Stealing of election paraphernalia

5. Power failure

6. Destruction of automated counting machines and computerized canvassing machines.

So, if you want to guard against these retail methods of electoral fraud in 2010, it is best to figure out how this will happen and implement countermeasures.