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Proem
There
is a popular notion that when the conduct of election is computerized,
the cheating will be minimized if not eliminated.
When
I studied for my Master in Engineering at the University of
the Philippines, Diliman Campus, I spent one year making computer
programs for engineering applications. The computer languages
I was using were low level or near the machine language. These
languages are no longer studied because they are already pushed
up to be taken by those who take higher studies in computer
programming.
When
I came back to Bohol, I was the first one to open a computer
programming school. Using my background in computer programming,
let us analyze the pros and cons of computerization.
Computer
Adage
The
common adage in computer programming is, "Garbage in,
garbage out." It means that if you enter a wrong data
the computer will give you a wrong answer. The computer would
not know whether the data entered is wrong or correct.
Therefore,
if you want to obtain a correct answer in accordance to the
program put in the computer, you must enter the correct data.
The
Dumb Computer
The
computer is a dumb machine. It has no morals. It would not
know what is right or wrong. Its advantage is that it can
perform the computation very, very fast and very, very, precise.
You can program a computer to compute thousands of data and
let it repeat the computation a thousand times and you will
always get the same answer. It is up to the computer user
to interpret whether the result is correct or wrong.
Computerized
Voting
The
computerized voting machine will be composed of a scanner
and computer elements that will interpret the data in the
scanned ballot. It would be similar to the computers used
to score Board Examination test papers. Nowadays, the result
of Board Examinations is released within 3 days to one week.
The
problem with a voting machine is that it will be programmable.
In order to be usable every election, the computer must be
programmed again to evaluate new names every election time.
The problem also is that the computer will not know whether
the instant it is reprogrammed, it is already another election
time after 3 years or it is reprogrammed for cheating in the
same election it was programmed.
Possible
Problems
1.
The Answered Ballot. The computer would not know whether the
ballots put for scanning is the same ballot answered by the
voters at the polling place or some pre-prepared ballots intended
for cheating. The computer will be programmed to scan for
identifying marks and if all are present, it will proceed
to evaluate. The problem is, a determined cheater can also
put in the identifying marks.
2.
The Scoring Program. If the computer is programmable, some
hacker can always reprogram the computer to make a different
computation and give a wrong answer to favor a particular
candidate. Maybe during the first election the computer can
escape hacking, but in the next election, it is probable that
many hackers already know how to do it.
3.
Transmission Cheating. How will the result of the computer
be transmitted to Manila?
If
it is automatically transmitted to Manila, then we have no
way of knowing what results are actually received in Manila.
Money transmissions from banks have no problem because nobody
has the intention to cheat. However, during election, when
the intention to cheat is rampant, it is still possible to
cheat during transmission.
It
All Settle Down to Human Factor
In
any human endeavor, the result will always depend on the human
factor. If all involved in an election will tend to be honest,
any method of election will have honest result. If all involved
in an election has the mentality to cheat, there is no election
method that could prevent cheating.
If
the mentality is to cheat, computerization will make it very
fast and efficient. If the purpose of computerization is to
prevent cheating, I think you can forget it. Someone somewhere
will always obtain the way how to subvert the computer. If
you are still in doubt, just remember the "Love Bug"
computer virus. That computer virus destroyed millions of
computer programs throughout the world.
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