According to the automated election law, every election return (ER) must contain the signature of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) chairman of specific polling precincts.

Some quarters crying fraud in the May 10 polls point out that the ER printouts generated by Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines carry no such signatures. Former Assemblyman Homobono Adaza, for one, has been making the local equivalent a federal case out of this “failure.”

At the Kapihan sa Sulo on Saturday, it dawned on observers who listened to Adaza make his case against the Automated Election System (AES), against the Commission on Elections (Comelec), against private contractor Smartmatic-TIM, against House suffrage committee chairman, Rep. Teodoro Locsin Jr. of Makati, against House suffrage committee member Rep. Roilo Golez of Parañaque and against just about anybody who does not buy his allegations of massive election fraud that he does not know what he is talking about.

What Adaza evidently expects are actual, handwritten signatures on each and every ER generated by over 76,000 PCOS machines used in polling precincts throughout the country on May 10. He does not seem to grasp the concept of “digital signature,” which is what the law actually requires.

Adaza’s insistence on handwritten signatures seems strange in an era when billions of people around the world routinely use digital signatures everyday.

For instance, bank depositors who go to automated teller machines (ATM) gain access to their savings or current accounts via their individual, customer-specific “keys”—usually consisting of four numerals, which are essentially digital signatures.

In another example, Netizens who surf the worldwide web to communicate among themselves or acquire information also have to go through a “sign in” procedure whenever they log on to such social networks as Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo! This process, too, entails entering unique usernames and passwords.

Digital signatures have been around for at least the past two decades. In fact, digitization has greatly speeded up business transactions, political mobilization and cultural interaction, not to mention mass and interpersonal communication.

Although cases of “identity theft” occasionally crop up, due almost always to the carelessness of individual ATM depositors or Internet account holders, the system has shown itself to be quite secure.

The modern world would be unimaginable without digital signatures. However, all that technical progress has apparently whizzed Adaza—along with others like him—by.

Some observers, however, could not help but suspect that what they were witnessing at the media forum was a case of legalistic nitpicking for a hidden political agenda. While Adaza’s objections to the AES seem flimsy, his bottom-line demand is downright outrageous.

What Adaza wants is for the May 10 general elections to be declared null and void, thus leaving all elective government positions open—until new polls are held.

In the meantime, he proposes that the 12 senators whose term of office do not expire on June 30 elect among themselves a new Senate president who, in turn, would act as caretaker chief executive until a new president of the Philippines is elected—presumably through Adaza’s method of choice, i.e. a slow, certifiably fraud-prone manual election.

The current term of office of President Gloria Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Speaker Prospero Nograles is set to expire on June 30. Similarly, 11 other senators, all congressmen and incumbent local government officials would have to step down on the same date.

But there would be 12 senators whose term of office runs until 2013 and they would constitute the only “continuing institution,” as Adaza put it, which could guarantee the orderly succession of power.

These senators are Edgardo Angara, Benigno Aquino 3rd, Joker Arroyo, Alan Peter Cayetano, Francis Escudero, Gregorio Honasan, Panfilo Lacson, Loren Legarda, Francis Pangilinan, Antonio Trillanes 4th, Juan Miguel Zubiri—and Manuel Villar.

If this were to happen, as Adaza insists, it should be easy to see how the candidate who failed to win the presidential race on May 10 despite a mind-boggling campaign kitty could again get a chance to grab the country’s top political post.

If the remaining 12 senators were allowed to pick among themselves the man who would become the country’s acting president, it should be easy to see how Villar could finally attain his burning ambition.

Villar should be able to count on the vote of his long-time allies, including Angara, Arroyo, Cayetano and Legarda. Meanwhile, a smart businessman like him should be able to cut deals with at least three or four other senators.

Going by Adaza’s proposal, the candidate who failed to win the privilege of entering Malacañang through the front door might yet gain entry through the back—as Senate president simultaneously acting as interim chief executive.

Talk about “Aha!” moments.

Sensible suggestion
A more sensible input to the raging debate over the problematic AES comes from the election watchdog Halalang Marangal (Halal).

Also speaking at the Kapihan, information technology expert and Halal Secretary General Roberto Verzola proposed a way to empower citizens to audit the May 10 elections—and settle the questions about the accuracy and integrity of PCOS counts once and for all.

Verzola suggested that all the ballot images stored in the 76,347 compact flash cards (CFCs) be made public in unencrypted form and grouped by precinct cluster.

“Once they are unencrypted, the ballot images will be in a standard format called JPEG, which can be displayed on any computer,” Verzola explained. “The 76,347 compressed files… can be made available for download at the Comelec website or saved as DVDs and made available to the public.”

He added: “While cheats have mastered the fine art of ballot box substitution, it will be a big challenge for them to create new ballot images now and substitute these for the authentic ones now stored on the CFCs.”

Verzola concluded: “Putting the ballot images online will not only . . . truly empower citizens in ensuring that their votes are properly counted, but it will also make it much easier for candidates to accept defeat.”

Good suggestion, but election losers “accept defeat”? That’ll be the day. Dan Mariano