Computers, 3-Way Count to Help Detect Philippine Vote Fraud

Private and government vote counters prepared Thursday to give the country quick, unofficial results of today’s presidential election.

Over the weekend, 55 million Filipinos will rely on their reports to determine whether incumbent Ferdinand E. Marcos or his opponent, Corazon Aquino, has won a majority in the hard-fought race. The formal determination of who will be president, however, will await the official canvass some days later.

If there is fraud in the election, any major differences in the three tabulations will give the first scent of it.

The government’s quick count, being managed by the Commission on Elections, will be tabulated in a gleaming auditorium at the International Convention Center beside Manila Bay. The floor of the room is lined with 105 new personal computers, bought in Taiwan at $1,200 each. In one section stand 19 telex machines to receive vote reports from the provinces. Electronic display boards will record the results.

Private Group’s Volunteers

Across the city at La Salle College in Greenhills, the private tabulators of the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) will count the vote in simpler surroundings.

Operating about 100 IBM PCs on loan from private companies, the group’s volunteers will record the vote and mark the running results on tally boards along the walls.

“These will be parallel and simultaneous operations,” said Danze Santos, finance chairman for the citizens’ group, on an inspection visit to the government quick-count headquarters. “I feel comfortable with the arrangements. Otherwise we would not have gotten together” to share data reported from provincial voting centers.

At La Salle, however, Christian Monsod, the group’s secretary general, was alert for potential problems. He said his operation will switch to its own power source on election night “as a precaution.”

At the election commission’s operation, Hermengildo Estrella, a consultant from First Data Corp., described how the computer program will watch for signs of fraud.

Checking Discrepancies

“If there is a discrepancy, the screen will blink at the operator,” he said. The computer is programmed to catch:

--An unlisted precinct reporting votes, a precaution against so-called “ghost precincts,” fictitious polling places.

--Precincts reporting their totals twice or more.

--Totals exceeding the number of registered voters in a precinct.

--”Statistical improbabilities,” for instance, a precinct’s total votes exceeding the expected turnout.

Estrella said the citizens’ group across town probably has programmed similar checks. But as of Wednesday, he said, neither side had seen the other’s programming.

The efforts to prevent fraud will be concentrated in the polling and tabulation centers across the country. Besides poll monitors from the citizens’ group and the candidates’ supporters, there are a group of international observers and a 20-member official delegation from the United States.

“There is a 50-50 chance of these elections being clean and honest,” said Jose Concepcion Jr., chairman of the citizens’ group.

John Hume, a member of the British Parliament from Northern Ireland who co-chairs the international observer team, said he expected that there would be some fraud.

“There’s an old saying in Northern Ireland: Vote early and vote often,” he said in explaining that the Philippines is not alone in election chicanery.

Alert to ‘Wholesale Fraud’

Hume said the visiting observers will be on the lookout not for “retail fraud”--double voting or paid-for ballots--but for “wholesale fraud”--the substitution of ballot boxes or official tally sheets.

Fraud watchers say that major abuses could occur after the ballots and tally sheets have been transported from the 86,000 precincts to the 1,600 municipal registrars. Each municipality has about 200 precincts, and each precinct about 300 voters. A switch in tally sheets between a municipality and a provincial canvass center might involve 60,000 votes, falling within Hume’s definition of wholesale fraud.

“That’s how it was done in (the parliamentary elections) of 1978,” said Monsod of the citizens’ group. “There was a complete fake set of returns.”

His group, as well as Aquino forces and the Roman Catholic Church, have urged voters to watch the ballots every mile of the way to prevent fraud. Marcos has said he wants a clean election.

The election commission and the citizens’ group say they will issue hourly reports once the polls close this afternoon, and may have 60% or more of the count in within 24 hours. If the final tally is reasonably close to the official canvass, it will be a first in Philippine election history.