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I could care less about BBM and Leni, but the problem with this alleged ‘election fraud’ causes an alarm for the future elections. If there’s anyone responsible for this controversy, it is the government for choosing Smartmatic in the first place. Let me explain further below.
What is Smartmatic?
Smartmatic is a voting machine company operating in 23 countries, including the Philippines. The Philippines chose Smartmatic to operate for the first automated elections in the country in 2010 [Wiki].
Here’s more about Smartmatic:
Smartmatic (also referred as Smartmatic Corp. or Smartmatic International) is a multinational company headquartered in London and incorporated on April 11, 2000, in the State of Delaware, United States. It specializes in the design and deployment of technology-enabled solutions to improve election administration.
Smartmatic is part of the SGO group, a family of ventures founded in 2014 that aim to provide societies, governments and individuals with the tools to address some of the twenty first century's most pressing challenges. SGO, formally known as the SGO Corporation Limited was incorporated in the United Kingdom and is run by a UK Board of Directors chaired by Lord Mark Malloch-Brown. [Wiki]
Why shouldn't we trust Smartmatic?
First things first, one reason we should not trust Smartmatic is their MD5 hash encryption algorithm, the flaw of the hash was found in 1996 (Wang et Al. 2004) and Smartmatic still uses that weak encryption hash from 2010 to 2016 Philippines National Elections. Imagine that?
According to an article in eWeek:
Microsoft is banning certain cryptographic functions from new computer code, citing increasingly sophisticated attacks that make them less secure, according to a company executive.
The Redmond, Wash., software company instituted a new policy for all developers that bans functions using the DES, MD4, MD5 and, in some cases, the SHA1 encryption algorithm, which is becoming "creaky at the edges," said Michael Howard, senior security program manager at the company, Howard said.
And here is how you exploit the MD5 Hash code, as deliberately explained in this article.
The Smartmatic SD cards (where our vote data went) is a storage-type sealed and encrypted to avoid data theft and manipulation, but unfortunately, given the weakness of MD5, the data inside can be manipulated. In fact, there are Comelec SD cards thrown away in Kabankalan found in a dump site.
On the 2016 Philippines elections, after Leni Robredo ‘surprisingly’ surpassed Bong Bong Marcos from a lead start, the BBM camp suspected an anomaly, then a few days later, Smartmatic announced they did in their hash to fix the “ñ” glitch.
Question, will the “ñ” glitch affect the votes? The answer is NO, our votes are counted by numbers with corresponding names and who we voted for. The hash update done by Smartmatic is not just silly, but also very suspicious.
According to an anonymous IT expert who leaked the hash code mismatch:
“The hash code inside the transparency server should be the same as the one to be inserted. We saw they’re different so we started to be suspicious and confronted the guy,” the source said. [Manila Standard]
Aside from using a weak encryption algorithm, Smartmatic suspiciously updated the server on the height of the elections. What are they up to?
Controversies from around the world
Smartmatic generated controversies from around the globe, with suspicious turn-out in the ballots (like in the Philippines), raising alarms and cases to be faced by Smartmatic.
Smartmatic controversy in Malaysia:
The ruling party’s ballot fraud and vote buying wiped out the surety of a bigger margin; gerrymandering barred Anwar from taking over the parliamentary majority.
In Mexico:
Mexico’s state of Tabasco is to punish election automation seller Smartmatic Corp. for messing up big time last June’s balloting.
Tabasco authorities had contracted the Venezuelan firm electronically to transmit and canvass within 12 hours the preliminary results of 21 local council elections. Smartmatic flopped, transmitting only 45% of results more than a day after the close of the balloting.
In Brazil:
Smartmatic was also blamed for Brazil’s fraudulent presidential election in Oct. 2014.The plot has been exposed in the blog henrymakow.com. First, the ruling Marxist party’s election lawyer was made head of the supposedly independent election commission (like in the Philippines in Jan. 2011). He in turn hired Smartmatic to supply the voting systems and machines. At the official 5 p.m. close of balloting on Election Day, Oct. 26, all the results were withheld on the pretext that voting still was ongoing in one state, Acre, at 8 p.m. Then, the figures were fudged. Pollsters were barred from conducting exit polls.
In Venezuela:
Smartmatic also rigged the Venezuela referendum of 2003 to keep strongman Hugo Chavez in office for life. He paid it $220 million, with which it acquired US firm Sequoia Election Systems that had contracts in 17 states.
In the US:
A bungled Sequoia vote count in Chicago in 2005 led to a US Congress investigation of Smartmatic’s Venezuelan owners. To avoid exposure, Smartmatic hastily sold Sequoia to its US execs. Whereupon, Dominion Voting System of Canada bought into Sequoia, while also licensing Smartmatic to sell its PCOS (precinct count optical scanners).
Last Nov. 2014 the election clerk of Mineral County, Nevada, sued Dominion for poll fraud. Allegedly the PCOS counted hundreds more votes than were actually cast. The balloting results in Nevada statewide also came under question.Source: [Star]
COMELEC to the rescue
COMELEC (Commission on Elections) has been defending Smartmatic’s suspicious move and insists the voting machine company is credible, a government agency whose website has been hacked by a rookie has no credibility to assure the Filipino people that the elections ‘was not rigged’.
The COMELEC’s incompetence led to a data breach of 55 Million registered voters in the Philippines and is fully searchable online with information such as full name, address, date of birth, and most especially fingerprint specimen, a complete formula for data fraud that can be used by criminals for their schemes online.
If they can’t fully secure their website, how could we trust them with Smartmatic?
There is no certainty that the 2016 Elections was rigged, it lies in the hands of the people investigating the ‘alleged fraud’, but taken into context the credibility of Smartmatic, the incompetence of COMELEC, the controversial hash mismatch and suspicious server update will surely cause a stir and authenticity in Leni Robredo’s Vice Presidency.
It is very hard to face people when your ‘victory’ is faced with controversy.
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