Individuals and groups interested in watching and monitoring the May 10 elections are gathered today at the University of the Philippines’ University Hotel for the National Conference on Citizen Election Monitoring.

Spearheaded by the Computer Professionals Union and a host of partner-organizations, the conference aims “to update the ICT sector with the current situation of the 2010 automated elections, showcase the different ICT initiatives being conducted to monitor the elections, and express solidarity with the rest of the ICT sector to help uphold the integrity of this democratic exercise in a concerted effort”.

Present at the conference are representatives from Center for People Empowerment and Governance (CenPEG), AES Watch, Kontra Daya, Google, Workers Election Watch, Blogwatch.ph and 100ARAW.com.

Participants are to sign a pledge for a fraud-free polls at the end of the conference.

Watch the livestream now:

Live TV by Ustream

In a statement issued today, NAMFREL enumerated a long list of issues and problems that the country needs to confront to ensure free and fair automated polls on May 10, 2010.

“Every Filipino would like to believe Comelec will deliver an honest and credible election but there is a growing feeling of mistrust among the public which has fueled a great deal of speculation that the elections will fail, seriously derailing the development of a mature democracy for the Philippines,” said the NAMFREL statement.

On the automated election system (AES), NAMFREL noted that “Comelec extend(s) tremendous leniency to Smartmatic not only in terms of front loaded payments and fees but accommodating major changes to the contract that sometimes cross the boundaries of what is legal.”

The group also said that “deadlines are not being enforced and the required levels of accuracy have not been attained in any of its pilot tests”.

Other AES-related concerns of NAMFREL include those on the source code review, preparation for random manual audit, cleansing of the voters’ list, transmission issues, server availability and transparency, congestion and queuing problems, printing of ballots and deployment of AES machines.

This year is the first time NAMFREL is participating in the elections sans official sanction by the Comelec. The Comelec accredited NAMFREL as its citizens’ arm in 21 national and local elections since 1984. It figured prominently in exposing and thwarting the acts of electoral fraud committed by President Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 “snap elections” against then opposition candidate Corazon Aquino.

Despite its non-accreditation, NAMFREL in cooperation with the National Secretariat for Social Action (NASSA) of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) would still conduct its Bantay ng Bayan operations before, during and after Election Day.

Below is the full statement of NAMFREL:

NAMFREL’s March 12 press statement

Here is the video:

WE Watch also released this flyer:

The second page contains a guide on how to participate in poll monitoring by WE Watch:

You may download this back to back flyer for printing, forwarding and distribution.

In what should be a positive example for the nation, results of UP Diliman’s second automated polls were quickly known, announced and posted online:

Halalan – Gate – Results

The Philippine Collegian reported 9,728 out of 22,568 students cast their votes, resulting in a “slightly higher” voter turnout at 43.11 percent, up from 42.96 percent last year.

Elected as new chairperson of the UP Diliman university student council was Rain Sindayen of the activist STAND UP party. Amme Agudo, also from STAND UP, also won as vice chairperson.

STAND UP and rival ALYANSA party each cornered 12 seats in the 33-member university-wide student council, with the rest split among KAISA (eight seats) and independents (two seats).

Except for glitches in the morning and low turnout in several precincts, the automated elections in UP Diliman were generally peaceful and fair, and that whatever technical and administrative glitches were resolved as soon as possible, according to reports received by 100ARAW.com.

No fraudulent acts or violent incidents were reported by the Philippine Collegian and the Halalan sa Diliman student media consortium.

The Commission on Elections should learn from the experiences of University of the Philippines Linux Users Group and UP Diliman’s student council election committees on how to implement automated elections.

This is not a report written in advance of the May 10 national elections. The precinct referred here is the College of Arts and Letters and the elections referred to are the university and college student council elections in the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

According to Halalan sa Diliman, problems hounded today’s automated student elections in UP Diliman: Delays in the opening of precincts and problems with servers of the UP Diliman automated election system. The effect: Voter disenfrachisement.

Mock polls and field tests staged by the Comelec for the May 10 elections have resulted in the same thing: The process of voting is slow and may not accommodate the 1,000 voters assigned per precinct, and there were problems in the transmission of votes.

Is the UP Diliman experience an omen of things to come this May?

What do you think?

[Editor's note: These UP Diliman student council elections, the second time they were automated, turned out to be a success. Read a postscript here.]