MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has laid out its recovery plan should the automated election system encounter problems on Election Day, from the precincts to the municipal and national canvassing centers.
 
The continuity plan, currently in technical form, was prepared by the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM and issued on March 16.

The Comelec has yet to issue a "layman-ized" version of the plan in resolution form. 

The contingency plan focuses on 3 crucial areas of the automated system classified as "high business impact" or HBI--the national board of canvassers, the provincial and municipal canvassing service, and the Precinct Count Optical Scanner or PCOS system.

As HBI, any disruption in these areas can "cause severe and catastrophic loss to the project," according to the contingency plan.
 
Among the possible problems in the canvassing system addressed in the plan are:

• unavailable data storage;
• server hardware failure;
• power interruption;
• network access failure;
• catastrophes like fire, floods, and earthquakes; and,
• sabotage and robbery.

In terms of the PCOS system, some of the problems identified are:

• defective security keys;
• unavailable PINS for the members of the board of election inspectors;
• ballot and printer jam;
• power supply interruption;
• transmission failure;
• catastrophes; and,
• sabotage.

Problem-solving, accountability 
 
The continuity plan provides detailed steps to address each problem, and identifies persons in charge.
 
In case of a power failure in the national canvassing center, for instance, the electricity technician will first have to notify the Comelec's and Smartmatic's technology managers of the problem.

The technology managers will then authorize the use of the generator sets to be set up the technician. Only when electricity has been restored for at least 30 minutes will the power shift back to an external source.
 
Should the power interruption affect network connections, the technology managers will authorize a switch to the back-up central server.
 
The back-up center will also be used should fire, flooding, earthquake and other catastrophes hit the central canvassing center.

In this case, Comelec security personnel will take charge of evacuating the canvassing system and personnel. Designated technicians will set up the system at the back-up center.

Other step-by-step solutions 
 
The same step-by-step solutions are also provided for the provincial and municipal/city/district canvassing centers and the polling precincts.
 
If members of the Board of Election Inspectors (BEI) lose their PINs needed to activate the PCOS machine, they shall call the PCOS technicians, who must then notify the National Support Center (NSC) of the unavailable PINs. The NSC will then provide PINs to the BEI.
 
If the ballot gets stuck in the machine or encounters a jam, IT-capable members of the BEI will pull the ballot out gently. Technicians may be asked for assistance if the paper gets ripped apart. The technician and BEI have to make sure that no piece of paper remains in the machine.
 
In case of a power failure and the PCOS shuts down because there's no standby battery or the battery is not working, the NSC will deliver a new battery and replace the old one.

If the machine bogs down or does not turn on, technicians will try to remedy the problem by resetting the machine. If the problem persists, the NSC will arrange for the delivery of replacement machines within two hours. The compact flash card of the defective PCOS will be transferred to the new one.
 
If the PCOS fails to transmit results, the modem's SIM cards will first be interchanged by the technician. If the solution doesn't work, the NSC will provide the replacement modem or a broadband global area network (BGAN), if available.

Another option is to bring the memory card containing the results to the nearest polling center that has a working PCOS and good transmission capability, or straight to the municipal canvassing center.
 
Major catastrophes

If major catastrophes strike, the entire polling center will be evacuated. The BEI should secure all election materials and wait for further instructions from the election officer.

In case of robbery and other crimes, security personnel will first check if the polling center is already safe. If so, the proceedings will continue.

If not, security personnel will order an evacuation. The PCOS technicians should check if all equipment are complete and notify the NSC of missing items to arrange for replacements.

Plan has many loopholes

Meanwhile, Lito Averia, an IT analyst of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) gave a failing grade to the Comelec's contingency plan.

He said the plan has many loopholes. For instance, he said the plan is not clear what the BEI and voters should do while waiting for replacement PCOS machines.

Averia said the uncertainty and the long wait might cause conflicts in the precincts.

He added that the BEI itself has not been trained on the contingency plan, and neither is there time for it.

Averia also pointed out the plan is not clear how to put together the results of votes already counted by the PCOS machines and the votes cast manually, in case a machine fails and manual polls are used instead.