RESPONSIBLE VOTING BY DIRECTOR FERDINAND T. RAFANAN

HOW TO VOTE FOR THE RIGHT CANDIDATE

By: Atty. Ferdinand T. Rafanan

Regional Election Director, NCR

1. Whom should you not vote?

a) Do not vote for candidates who repair your roads, schools and bridges, or give money and free transportation, free food and drinks, free medicines, and other material things DURING THE CAMPAIGN PERIOD. These are crimes during the campaign period.

• Good candidates and their campaigners should do these before the campaign period.

b) Proudly tell in your conversations, speeches, writings, and posters that the following are not for sale: you, your parents, your brothers and sisters, your neighbors, your Barangay, your friends.

2. Who should give money, and free transportation, free food and drinks, free medicines and other material things DURING THE CAMPAIGN PERIOD?

• Charitable people (other than candidates and their campaigners) and groups like the Red Cross, Rotary, Lions, Jaycees, etc. who are non-partisan or not identified with any candidate.

3. HOW DO YOU CHOOSE THE RIGHT CANDIDATE TO VOTE FOR?

a) Know all the candidates

a) Match their WILL, INTELLECT, SPIRIT, AND HEART with the functions of the office they aspire for

b) Narrow down your choice through a process of elimination as follows:

W I S H

CANDIDATE	WILL = OBEY LAW	INTELLECT = COMPETENCE	SPIRIT =VISION	HEART =CHARACTER
1	X	/	/	/
2	/	X	/	/
3	/	/	X	/
4	/	/	/	X
5	/	/	/	/
6	/	/	/	/
7	/	/	/	/
8	/	/	/	/
9	/	/	/	/
10	X	X	X	X
11	X	X	X	X

DO NOT VOTE FOR CANDIDATES WITH X (FAILING) IN ANY CRITERIA. VOTE ONLY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE CHECKS IN ALL CRITERIA. IF NONE PASS, VOTE NONE. GOOD PEOPLE WILL SOON BECOME CANDIDATES WHEN THEY SEE THAT THERE ARE ENOUGH VOTERS WHO VOTE THIS WAY. THAT WILL BE THE START OF THE END OF GRAFT AND CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT!

“A GOOD NAME IS MORE DESIRABLE THAN GREAT RICHES; TO BE ESTEEMED IS BETTER THAN SILVER OR GOLD .” ( PROV . 22:1, NIV)

"HONEST ELECTION BEGINS AT THE HEART!" (FTR)

Smartmatic offers ‘smart’ balloting system for 2010 national elections

The success of fully automated elections in 2010 may start a “chain reaction” in Asia, as close neighbors may want to emulate the Philippines in this aspect, said an official of a leading election technology company.

In a briefing last week, Smartmatic Corp. sales director Cesar Flores further added that despite the current economic environment, governments in the region will still consider spending on poll automation technology despite budget constraints.

Poll automation is often cited as a way for the country to have a faster and more credible election process.

“Right now, we are very focused in the Philippines. But we will use this [country] as a breach to go into other countries in Asia. We believe that if we’re successful here, it will create a chain reaction,” he said during the sidelines of the briefing.

“The will [to automate in the region] is above the constraints,” he said, noting that “credible” elections can translate to investment opportunities for the country.

The company’s first foray in the country—and the Southeast Asian region—was during the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections conducted in August 2008.

Flores noted that their experience in handling the ARMM elections gave the company some preparation in handling a major Philippine election.

“ARMM allowed us to have a better understanding of the Philippines than we had before, so this creates a very unique position for us. It would certainly make us very efficient in calculating our costs for 2010,” the company executive said.

For the ARMM elections, the company provided over 3,000 direct recording electronic (DRE) automation devices for the actual voting, as well as for contingency and training purposes. The other system used was the optical mark reader (OMR) provided by a separate group.

The DRE is a touchscreen system where voters input their candidates onto the machine, after which the vote is counted automatically after confirmation. An OMR requires a ballot to be manually filled out by means of shading ovals alongside the corresponding names of the candidates before it is scanned.

A key issue is the safety of poll automation and the company said they addressed this through a receipt printed from each DRE machine. This, according to the company, will help voters verify if their votes were recorded correctly.

For the 2010 elections, Flores said it is very possible for the country to have a fully automated balloting—with the “right mix of technologies.”

But the correct mix of DRE or OMR, he said, will depend on several factors including the country’s geography and population distribution. The DRE machines, for instance, may be better suited for densely populated urban areas, he pointed out.

Robert Cook, Smartmatic’s worldwide sales president, said using several technologies may have some extra cost for a country but he added that integrating these systems “is really not that expensive.”

Flores noted that the country’s Commission on Elections (Comelec) will ultimately decide on which system or combination of technologies will be used.

“That will depend on [the Comelec’s] budget,” he said. For the ARMM election, the government spent some P188 million for Smartmatic’s DRE equipment, as well as logistics and training.

The amount, if it will be ratified by Congress, is the P11.3 billion supplemental budget for the 2010 elections’ poll automation. Flores said this amount, with the proper mix of technologies, should be sufficient to ensure full poll automation in the coming elections

Cook, however, noted that budget issues need to be decided by the first half of the year. “If [budget deliberations on the automated elections] go beyond May or June, then there will be an issue [on fully automating the 2010 elections],” he said.

Comelec body names winning poll automation bid

The remaining group in the poll automation bidding has “virtually” bagged the P11.2-billion contract to supply machines in the country’s first computerized elections next year, according to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) special bids and awards committee.

Ferdinand T. Rafanan, committee chairman, told reporters yesterday that they have prepared a recommendation for the winning bidder.

He said Total Information Management/Smartmatic has met all the criteria. “Virtually, they are already the winner. It’s just our signature missing in the recommendation to the [Comelec] en banc,” he said.

The en banc is expected to announce its decision “in one or two days or in a week,” he added.

Mr. Rafanan said he is not aware of grounds to reject the bid of Smartmatic.

In its bidding document, Smartmatic proposed P7.2 billion for the machines.

The losing bidders were Avante International, Indra Elections Consortium, AMA Group of Companies/Election Systems and Software, Universal Storefront Services/Sequoia, Gilat/F. F. Cruz and Co., Inc., and Amalgamated Motors Philippines/Syrex.

Oversight hearing

Meanwhile, a congressional oversight panel will conduct a hearing after the Comelec has awarded the contract to determine safeguards to be instituted by the winning bidder.

Senator Francis Joseph G. Escudero, Senate panel chairman of the joint congressional oversight committee on automated election system, yesterday said the congressional panel should be assured of Smartmatic’s safeguards, including those against hacking.

“We will hear all the complaints to clear the doubts in the contract,” he told reporters in a chance interview.