Mar 17, 2009 18:47
Filipinos are gearing up for the Philippine presidential elections in May 2010, and the Commission on Elections here is looking at poll automation to discourage, if not totally eliminate, electoral fraud.

Known in local parlance as dagdag-bawas, vote padding and shaving are unfortunately fixtures in Philippine elections, with rival parties routinely accusing each other of cheating. As the joke goes, nobody loses in Philippine elections because everyone claims to have been cheated.

While this election official probably wasn't joking, I found it amusing to read in this INQUIRER.net breaking news article that he's daring hackers to crack the poll automation software that Comelec will be deploying. Somebody should tell the good Comelec official that based on experience the world over, it's usually not a good idea to dare hackers or to claim your system is hack-proof.

Here's an excerpt:
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is challenging computer
hackers to take a crack at the software that will be used in the 2010
elections to prove that the system is secure from fraud and tampering.

"By the time a hacker gets into our system, the election is over,"
Comelec executive director Jose Tolentino boldly declared Monday in a
press briefing.

Tolentino said the Comelec would welcome cyber-security experts who wish to check the system for weaknesses.

Programmers and the general public can also scrutinize the source
code of the company that will bag the 11.3 billion-peso automation contract
for the 2010 national elections.

Well, guess it's good to know that, rightly or wrongly, the Comelec feels very confident about poll automation.

Now, if only we Filipinos can be confident there won't be cheating at the polls...

SOURCE: http://asia.cnet.com/blogs/babelmachine/post.htm?id=63009597