Automated Elections, Some Thoughts
FROM Guest post from someone who emailed the blog.
I watched with a great deal of interest the recently released video (https://www.onenewspage.com/video/20230917/16205147/The-Truth-is-Out!-This-is-how-they.htm) which tries to expose election fraud in the 2022 presidential elections in the Philippines and wish to respond. First, a little about myself. I’m an American with a long-term interest in Philippine politics. I am very distressed by claims of widespread electoral fraud in American politics which are totally groundless. At the same time, as an IT professional, I recognize how easy it is to cheat when computers are involved. I’m a huge fan of Leni Robredo. On Election Day in 2004 I flew to Phoenix, Arizona for 24 hours to observe voting in a lower income precinct and I witnessed how people were denied the right to vote.
A lot is being made of the private IP address 192.168.0.2. As I will describe below, unfortunately it is not the smoking gun of obvious fraud that it is suggested to be. That IP address does however point to serious gaps in transparency by Comelec. Hang with me as I describe some computer issues.
Private IP addresses are not “owned” by anyone. They do not indicate a specific device, whether a computer, router, printer, or other endpoint. I build many small networks in the 192.168.0.0 subnet, and invariably the router address ends with .1 or .254, and the server with .2. I could never imagine giving my server a public IP address, because it would be exposed to almost immediate attack by malevolent actors on the internet. Instead, an edge router is placed in between the internet and a server to protect it. In fact, servers that are put on public IP addresses are often called honey pots because they intentionally collect malware that’s analyzed by data scientists.
In addition to the edge router just described, internet traffic uses a series of intermediate routers between the sender and the receiver of IP packets. This internet traffic is subject to potential “man-in-the-middle attacks,” whether on the public or a private network. There are two ways in which most internet traffic is protected. First, the traffic itself is encrypted in a browser, and HTTPS guarantees this encryption. Second, the remote site being browsed has a certificate which demonstrates it is who it says it is. For most of us, most of the time, this is sufficient.
Online banking transactions have a higher bar. They must also guarantee that the transactor is legitimate. Passwords and multi-factor authentication are ways of accomplishing this. Once you demonstrate you are legit, you’re allowed to conduct business on the site.
Although I know little about proprietary election systems, I know they have the highest hurdle. They must simultaneously preserve the confidentiality of individual voters, accurately tally results, create an audit trail of transactions, and send results in a way that guarantees the authenticity of the sender.
Ironically, individual transactions should be completely invisible, but the processes must be totally transparent. In the case of the 2022 Philippine elections, they don’t appear to be. Here are my concerns:
- If 51% of the IP addresses were identical, what was the distribution of the remaining IP addresses? Were they all private too?
- If some were public, how can this anomaly be explained?
- If they were all private, perhaps indicating the use of a virtual private network or VPN tunnel, what were the corresponding public IP addresses of the 64,000 precinct devices that sent results?
- Was there a paper audit trail?
- If so, has it been randomly audited?
- Was public-key private-key encryption or some other mechanism used to guarantee that each result was sent from the precinct which it claimed to be?
Setting aside the election transactions themselves, we need to think about election results as evidence of election soundness, or not. It is simply inconceivable that precincts across the country showed the same 86% participation. If this were simply the aggregate, comparing hour one and hour two, it’s a trivial outcome, easily explained by chance. But I understand that each region showed an identical percentage result. Contrast this with a distribution curve around an average, the classic bell curve. By itself this exact percentage across regions is a very strong indicator of fraud.
Was a post-election audit performed? This is another way to determine if an election has been tampered with. First, actual precincts can be randomly chosen to compare the raw data with the published results. Second, results can be compared with previous elections to discover outliers. Third, even the numbers contained in the results can be analyzed, because they are not randomly distributed 1 to 9. It’s very hard to reproduce the true randomized distribution of real election results.
I am suggesting that the discussion move beyond a single IP address to ask even more hard-nosed questions about the past election, and demand reforms that will make it possible to achieve fair elections in the future. At a minimum, here’s what I think should be included in future elections:
- A physical (paper) audit trail for every vote cast.
- Published precinct tallies.
- A transparent, thorough description of the vote collection and transmission methods.
- Results distributed to the public media and capable of being analyzed.
- Evidence of point-to-point encryption methods that prevent spoofing.
- Rigorous testing by outside parties who are given an opportunity to hack the system before the election, as friendly white hats.
- Post election audits.
- Documentation for all inevitable outlier data, such as failed transmissions, more votes than voters in a precinct, 100% vote for one candidate, late submissions, and double votes by a single voter.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
gian, thanks so much for posting this enlightening article. the result of may election 2022 was heartbreaking for many when the massive amount of votes started spewing like no other, the counting like a demon possessed!
we knew there was hakut crowd, we just did not foresee uber humongous hakut votes as well, ghost votes manifested right in front of our eyes! tons of money must have exchanged hands to accomplish the malware-ish feat! though there had been apparent unconfirmed reports that rogue players did not get the full amount they were promised and received only a fraction. and if they were to make a complaint, they would have to get out from their hidey holes and show themselves, and that would make them complicit to election fraud! punishable by law.
https://catholicethics.com/forum/philippine-national-election/
comelec’s transparency server is sumat transparency in reverse: a transparency when you’re not having transparency, in me humble opinion.
Thanks for this Gian. Very enlightening!
My biases and emotion says that Rio et Al had a slam dunk. But of course scientific evidence are more convincing, heck scams are also convincing it is the way presented
I find that odd that rio et al had not been invited to attend the senate previous inquiry as regards the private ip address anomaly. comelec commissioner garcia was present and presented his myths and fables unopposed. rio was not invited yata and given chance to present his own panig.
at the last senate inquiry, had rio et al been present, they would probly have asked and be granted to see and inspect the transmission logs in question. the election fiasco would have been better served, and we the general public would have gotten a much clearer picture.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1831901/comelec-told-explain-2022-poll-quirks
current comelec commissioner garcia has explanation for the ghostly ip address in question. maybe because senate did not ask the right question, like how in the name of the blessed tilapia did the private ip address manage to sent election results when the actual election results hadnt been downloaded yet! and because senate did not ask the right question, we did not get the right answer, naturally. haha.
ttps://philippines.licas.news/2023/08/02/rio-debunks-comelec-chiefs-claim-on-use-of-private-ip-address-in-2022-elections/
ay naku, how are we laypeople to know the the to and fro volleys between gen rio and commissioner garcia, the senate had better redo a deeper dive inquiry with both rio et al and garcia invited anew. for general public interest and transparency of comelec both rio et al and garcia had better be present at the new inquiry. the senators kasi as sumat stymied and stumped by the sheer volume of votes coming so miraculously at so short a time. it was blitzkrieg!
Question:
Of the 20.1 million votes that were irregularly transmitted to the Comelec tabulation center, is there a way to verify how many were tallied in favor of candidate Marcos and how many were tallied in favor of candidate Robredo?
https://pcij.org/article/8522/how-regions-voted-marcos-triple-quadruple-votes
I hope this helps, but our librarian karlG maybe able to give a more detailed tabs.
Thanks, that was helpful but I’m referring specifically to the subject of what Gen. Rio had discovered as irregular transmission of election returns via a private IP address which overall comprise a total of 20.1 million votes from Metro Manila, Cavite, and Batangas. Is there a way to verify the distribution of those votes? Was it 100% credited to Marcos Jr. or 50% Marcos, 50% Robredo? Maybe 75% Marcos, 25% Robredo? That determination should give us an idea if the discovered alleged anomaly of vote transmission could give credence to the bigger charge that Leni was cheated (and should have been declared winner) of the 2022 election.
The irregularity of transmission does not in itself provide a clear proof of cheating.
And based on that PCIJ link that you provided, it is clear that Marcos secured majority of the country’s regions and is the overall legit winner notwithstanding the irregularity of transmission in the Cavite, Batangas, and MM area.
Yes, the last sentence is true, I suspect.
The opposition is wasting its time instead of finding out why people voted for Marcos and addressing the root causes. 2025 won’t be any better this way.
Exactly. A deep reflection on why majority of voters succumbed or were made more responsive to the Marcos/Duterte propaganda.
One root cause is religion. Too many religions in PH especially the homegrown ones are prone to block voting. The flock vote for whomever their pastor favor. Is someone in the House progressive/bold enough to legislate against it? Even if there is a law about it, will it be implemented with integrity?
The IOM’s (International Observer Mission) report is germane to the topic and an enlightening read:
“The International Observer Mission, sponsored by the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP), found that the May 9, 2022 Philippine National Elections were marred by a higher level of failure of the electronic voting system than ever before, along with a higher level of blatant vote-buying, disturbing level of red-tagging and a number of incidents of deadly violence. A large number of voters did not get to cast their vote, many found their name was no longer on the voter roll, and many had to trust that election officials would later put their marked ballot paper through a Vote Counting Machine (VCM).
This election does not meet the standard of “free and fair” because of these prevailing conditions that robbed the voters of access to reliable information, access to the voting places without in- timidation, and a credible vote counting system. This election cannot be declared “free and fair” until all the illegal acts that have marred the process are dealt with.”
Click to access 2022-05-18_IOM_InterimReport.pdf
Leave aside the independent agency of voters to chose based on information and conditions available to them, Gen. Rio was saying that in the questionable transmission of ERs the distribution of votes were pre-programmed or altered by what he calls “man in the middle” such that the final tabulation does not square with the actual number of votes casts on the precinct level.
How can that be proved when we have in fact a 68:32 vote distribution covering the area in question which is more or less reflective of all the pre-election surveys including those commissioned by the opposition?
proof? rio did ask to peruse the transmission log at times specified by him, but rio was woefully cold shouldered and comelec chair denied his request. methink, up to this day, comelec chair has not said a word why rio’s request was denied. I understand rio made the request before the time for perusal has elapsed.
the transmission log in question must be our country’s topmost secret that it cannot be viewed by just anyone, ever.
What are the useful info from the transmission log other than the time stamp that will prove cheating or alteration of results?
albeit illusive, the gem is here somehow, but I dont trust meself to pick them bones in this here report.
pcij may election 2022 predates general rio et al’s allegation, and does not specifically addressed allegation of wrongdoing. a savvy investigative journalist would have to do a deeper dive to get to the bottom of things.
now after 9 of nov 2022, e.i, six months after the may election, time has lapsed and comelec transmission traffic will no longer be available.
According to the article below the pattern was 68:32 (favoring MJr) not just for the Calabarzon area but for majority of the transmissions, raising some suspicions but the UP School of Statistics said such ratio without context “could not be used as sufficient proof of electoral fraud.”
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1174251
https://politics.com.ph/2023/09/13/liza-marcos-smartmatic-president-reportedly-met-before-may-2022-polls/
if UP thinks the context in question is just merely laying around and ready for all to see, ah, but that’s not the case. so very well hidden mayhap iyan and certainly not for our prying eyes. we are not meant to know, we are not privy. UP was dependent on the data it was given (manipulated or not), and did not ask to see the transmission log. the devil is in the detail and they miss it! haha
buti pa yong arithmetic titser ko in primary school, she would demand to see all my computations, scratches, summaries, details, and whatnots, just to see how I arrived at an answer and thus solved the complicated arithmetic question. I think, as regards the automated election, and unlike my primary school titser, who was a graduate of normal teachers’ college in cebu, UP has gotten a bit lazy. UP is so used yata to peer review and anything done by their peers expressly got the thumps up. seemingly very cliqueky.
UP is what it is and kenat be understood from outside.
Your teacher went to a NORMAL place, not to UP.
Maybe the author of the article would like to chime in. Just use an alias just indicate that you wrote the article.
the mice commenters are playing, coz the cat author is away.
anyhow, the author has given us reasonable doubt about bong marcos and sara duterte’s winning. and comelec commissioner garcia further strengthened the reasonable doubt by not producing the specific transmission log needed. and if garcia cannot produce the log needed coz in god’s honest truth the damn log does not exist, and never has, the assumption that smartmatic voted for marcos and sara to win, and not the voters themselves, is gaining traction, haha.
Like I said before. IF Sara wins it is nit because of Smartmatic it is because of Stupidmatic
mayhap stupidmatic has a cozy mateship with UP school of stats, gotta keep up the status quo, comrades!
Unmusical intermission still about music.
The first Filipino Billboard Magazine issue is out!
https://x.com/zryanverse/status/1714185603456340309?s=20
if the high heel fits, ahem. dati, leni was called a fake vice president by both sara and bong marcos, but leni was highly exonerated by peta on bong marcos’ expense of circa 90million pesos! bong marcos asked and duly paid for the manual recount of votes hoping to turn the result, and was thwarted by the true count of votes: leni did win, and marcos did lost.
now post election 2022, one is to two, yan ang ratio anew. hello! presenting a seemingly fake president and a fake vice president; ang daling bumalik ng karma ng mga ito. calling a kettle black tapos, sila pala ang presumbly blacker!
sus, we may have an usurper occupier on the throne!
at saka, ano ba talaga ang kinatatakutan ng comelec! if unity team did truly win, the transmission log in question would surely verify the win. and unity team will be utterly, utterly happy! and we will be utterly utterly quiet. no more cheating innuendos from us and no more passadobles. end of story.
comelec commissioner garcia, let the transmission log speak! else there will always be black clouds hanging over the head of the incumbent in malakanyang; he will always be sus! and people will always look sideways at him.
the father bankrupted 800 banks according to finance man dominguez, with masagana 99 that turned out to be so povertyphilic that many were consigned to poverty. and now, the alleged smartmatic voted son, allegedly voted by smartmatic and not by voters, is doing the masagana dance! his maharlika fund is seemingly likely to bankrupt banks, the once reviewed implementing rules and regulations (IRR) reviewed again. maharlika is apparently masagana resurrected, and banks will lose, haha.
alan cayetano is wondering why pinoys are not all arms about the seemingly hacking of philhealth, their personal and private details apparently outed.
maybe hacking is like facebook and instagram, where people post all about their lives, work, leisure activities, as well as sharing info and even pics of their pregnant bellies and newborns! what is there left to hack? as for private health records – of what use is one’s cancer treatment, or dialysis details, sickness and treatment to anyone?
all kinds of info can be had in facebook, istagram, etc. better than hacking. filipinos loved the attention of their 15minutes of fame and maybe more. and willingly outed themselves in internet!
Musical intermission: a Jamaican musician gives praise to Bugoy Drilon’s cover of the reggae song “One Day”..
On Philippine music rising, a new great documentary – about OPM, PPop and SB19.
One thing it says is that just like the Beatles and later KPop turned things around from imitation (of American music) to innovation, PPop may also achieve global status soon.