Online Elections? Your Right and Privacy

JAYVEE FORTUNO

IN THE CURRENT situation where there are limitations with our access to going out of our residences, the chances of people registering for the next election is minimal compared to the years where people still have easy access to going out of their homes. According to the data gathered by the Commissions on Elections (COMELEC), the number of registrants for the next elections during the voter registration that started last September 21, 2020, was only 863,309. The said number is not even half of the expected four million people who are eligible to vote in the 2022 elections.

Due to this, Gregorio Larrazabal, former commissioner of COMELEC, emphasized that the pandemic is not an excuse for eligible voters not to vote, especially that what lies within their votes is the future of the country for the next six years. Meanwhile, people have been asking how the next election will happen, with the limitations of the setup. Given that not all Filipinos have access to the internet or are allowed to go out of their homes.

The Philippine General Elections, which will take place in May 2022, will provide the country with another opportunity to elect leaders who will contribute to shaping the country’s future. Senators have been debating a mail-in voting method, where it means that the votes will be cast by sending it through an email. It was proposed in light of the pandemic, with varying degrees of interest; however, the Senate President has openly rejected the plan for grounds of inclusion and safety, while two other members have expressed support for it.

Regardless of whether there will be a shift to a mail-in voting system or a stick to an electronic voting system in the upcoming elections, the majority of registered voters believe that it will involve the use of electronic data processing systems, which come with their own set of cybersecurity risks. Aside from that, the fact that there are still more than three and a half billion people, nearly half of the global population who are not yet connected to the internet, several Filipinos are part of it. Given that in the setup with the online classes where the youth and professionals are already experiencing difficulties, with them being part of the eligible voters, accessing this kind of voting system will be a struggle.

Aside from the connectivity issues the whole country is experiencing, the critical factor that will hugely be affected

is the security of the voters. Cybersecurity concerns are most prevalent in two sectors of the electoral value chain. According to the United Nations and European Convention on Human Rights, voter secrecy is one of the many elements of democracy. It means that everything must be accurate and verifiable under the possible online election to ensure that the system can be trusted. With the existing doubts and concerns, two of those must be given focus.

The first is the procedure of voter registration. One example of an inherently exposed risk area is the security of voter registration databases. The data on voter registration is used to determine who is a legitimate voter and whether or not they have cast a ballot. It is vital information that, if stolen, might be used to affect voter behavior, encrypt data so that it or the database becomes inaccessible, or socially engineered voter behavior. Data privacy is a major worry for legitimate voters who have provided their personally identifiable information (PII) during the voter registration process, in addition to the data integrity issue raised by the data breach. There is also the more dangerous risk of data tampering by a hostile third party to skew election results in favor of specific politicians and parties. The actual electoral procedure is the second area of concern. Ballots filled out by registered voters are scanned by vote-counting equipment before being counted. The VCMs then aggregate all votes in election returns connected to the central and transparency servers at the end of election day. After then, the results are compiled and sent to the Boards of Canvassers at the local, provincial, and state levels. If left unprotected, the linked data networks are vulnerable to cyberattacks. Given the risks, the government may find it hard to handle and find ways on how they will manage the upcoming elections. Besides being vulnerable to hacking, online elections cannot be audited effectively given that cyber attackers could potentially delete millions of ballots. It is also why several groups of computer scientists have argued against internet voting or said that instead, it should only be used in parallel with a paper system for verification.

An election is a uniquely difficult process to deliver under the pressure of high expectations, limited budgets, and a hard deadline. According to some, there is no technology yet available that can meet the challenges of delivering elections safely via the internet although, many aspects of our lives have shifted online, one thing that the current system should consider is the vulnerability of the things that could be put at risk, especially if it indicates the right and privacy of the public.