A broken electoral system

BY ANTONIO CONTRERAS      DECEMBER 11, 2018

THERE is no doubt about it. When seen against the conduct of elections in the United States, ours is definitely a broken system.

One can just stand in awe at the manner American elections are held. Whatever problems one may have regarding American politics, the way the US conducts its elections, and deal with its aftermath, including possible cases of election fraud, cannot but generate a deep sense of envy among Filipinos.

It is not just the speed of knowing the results. On this matter, the Philippines has somewhat become comparable after our elections were automated. One of the areas where we are lagging behind is in the rapidity of the manner in which political analysts dissect the election results. We cannot but be amazed at how the results, voter behavior, and voting patterns are unpacked and analyzed, by county, district, state and issues, all in colored and animated graphics, by political and election analysts in the US TV networks.

But a more fatal handicap is the manner we handle election fraud Ours is a system that is so saddled by procedures that instead of penalizing those who commit fraud, the rules are in fact designed to even enable them.

In the US, there are mechanisms for automatic, state-funded recounts. In the state of Florida, when the winning margin is less than 0.5 percent, an automatic computerized recount is immediately conducted without the need of an electoral protest or a pleading filed by a losing candidate, where the ballots are again fed into the vote-counting machines. And if the margin is less than 0.25 percent, an automatic manual recount is mandated.

But not in the Philippines, where a recount can only happen after an election protest is filed with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for local government positions, and with the respective electoral tribunals for election protests against elected members of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Vice President and the President.

In the US, there is a deadline for conducting the recounts. But again, not in the Philippines, where recounts are not only expensive for the protestant, but are also perennially slow. Hence, we see the sorry spectacle of candidates who lost because they were cheated, and who spent millions to prove their case, only to be proclaimed as the rightful winner months, weeks or even just days before their supposed terms of office expire. The candidates who were wrongly proclaimed, and who benefited from the cheating, are not even penalized by being required to return to the state all salaries and benefits paid to them. Worse, they are not even investigated for their possible involvement in the fraud.

This is where, indeed, our electoral system is structured in a way that it enables the commission of fraud. This is because under our laws, the probability of a cheat getting away with it by finishing an undeserved term, or even if ousted later, will not result in any criminal prosecution. The bonanza enjoyed by cheats or those who benefit from cheating, even if they end up being booted out, is that they get to enjoy the benefits, both financial and political, of being an incumbent for the period they sat in their undeserved positions. And they can even run again in the next elections, and it is not entirely clear if their undeserved tenure can in fact be counted against their term limitations.

One of the reasons why many politicians and political operators are so bold and audacious in committing fraudulent acts is that our election laws appear to deal only with candidate qualifications and violations of rules on campaigning, and not with the commission of actual fraud. This is why more time is spent hearing disqualification cases, in declaring candidates as nuisances, and in policing the placement of campaign posters and campaign spending, but not in actually investigating reported cases of fraud before and during the conduct of the elections. In order for these to get any attention, they have to be embedded in an election protest. But what makes it absurd is that the Comelec and the various electoral tribunals are not criminal courts but administrative courts, and hence are not the proper forums to hear criminal violations of election laws.

But not in the US. The current election fraud investigations in the state of North Carolina bears this out, where there are allegations of election fraud related to absentee ballots, and where certain election procedures were apparently not followed. Contrary to law, absentee ballots were reportedly collected in one county in the ninth congressional district by non-family members who then turned these over to a contractor working for the Republican candidate. These so-called absentee ballot ‘harvesters” were then paid by the contractor. This prompted the North Carolina state board of elections to vote against certifying the Republican candidate who won by a mere 905 votes over his Democratic opponent, and to consider the calling of new elections. Meanwhile, criminal investigations are being conducted to look into the matter.

What makes it even more interesting in this case is that abnormal election data trends are seriously considered as basis for looking into possible fraud. It is odd that the Democratic candidate won by 24 points over the Republican in the absentee ballots from other counties, but lost by 8 points in this particular county where the alleged illegal harvesting of absentee ballots happened, and where 42 percent of the voters are registered Democrats and only 19 percent are registered Republicans.

And you compare that against what we have in our beloved Republic, where an anomalous straight line depicting an otherwise supposedly random transmission is dismissed as a figment of the imagination of crazy Marcos loyalist academics. Worse, even documented evidence of pre-election transmissions, missing digital images of ballots, abnormally high levels of undervotes and wet ballots are ignored on the basis of a mere denial by Comelec and Smartmatic. The mere presence of an unauthorized fourth server, and the tweaking by a foreigner of the program while votes are being counted, would have already merited a criminal investigation, even without a complaint. But it seems that our government is helpless against an election service provider whose record is blemished, and which has active criminal cases filed against some of their employees.

In fact, our political leaders even simply allowed Andy Bautista to leave, a person of utmost interest in our quest to seek answers to our questions regarding the conduct of the 2016 elections.

We have to watch how the Americans do it, and weep. Elections are supposed to be the cornerstone of any democracy. Election laws must be designed to safeguard the interest of the electorate. But as it appears, what we have in our country are laws and procedures that embolden the commission of fraud simply because they are so structured to make the crime of rigging results, wetting ballots and tampering computer programs pay. It appears that what we have are laws that protect those who commit or benefit from the fraud.

Without a doubt, our electoral system is broken.

https://www.manilatimes.net/a-broken-electoral-system/480831/