176 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy, Second Edition anonymous out of fear for their safety. If true, though, this would utterly destroy any lingering trace of election integrity and Comelec credibility. Recapitulation Since 2009 when it began preparing for the country's rst nationwide automated polls, Comelec has – despite vigorous shouts of protest from computer science professionals, academics, and citizens' groups – systematically acted to eliminate and disregard the standard computer industry security protocols and other important safeguards that could allow the validation of results and ensure the accuracy and integrity of the outcomes. Comelec's record of decisions and actions make it appear as if its main goal all along was to deliberately create a situation where manipulating election outcomes would be as easy as the proverbial walk in the park. Control of the voting and counting machines, control of the electronic transmissions, and control of the memory devices were ensconced rmly in the hands of Comelec's favored system provider (Smartmatic), with no accountability and auditability mechanisms in place or in operation. Dagdag-bawas [literally, add-subtract], the street term for election cheating, is far more efcient done electronically with a computer than the old manual dagdag-bawas where election returns had to be altered manually. Elections can now be stolen in the click of a keystroke. “Who controls the machine controls the votes” is the simplest explanation of the problems intrinsic to a computerized election. It was made by University of the Philippines professor Bobby Tuazon of the policy group CenPEG to drive home to people without any technical background the basic problem regarding automated polls. He stressed, “There should be no illusion… that using modern technology will guarantee a free election.” As implemented by Comelec, the country's automated election system is almost entirely opaque and there is no way for the candidates, the political parties, the media, and the voting public to verify and validate election results. What this means is that there is no transparency. And transparency is an absolute requirement if an election is to be credible and democratic. In a manual election, transparency is provided by the fact that ballot boxes are opened in the presence of everyone and the ballots counted out in public in the precinct where the voting took place. Every concerned party can then take an exact copy of the precinct tally sheet duly signed by authorized election ofcials. In an automated election, no one can see the ballots being counted – they are inside the machine – or the manner in which they are tallied. Even if candidates' representatives and poll watchdogs and interested citizens make it a point to stand right there in front of the voting and counting machine, there is absolutely nothing to see. Effectively, it is like having the ballot boxes taken by an unknown person to a secret back room while all concerned parties wait outside until that person emerges from that room and reports the vote count. It should