20 June 2008
The COMELEC En Banc
Palacio del Gobernador
Intramuros, Manila
Attention: Comm. Rene Sarmiento
Dear Sirs,
I am glad to inform you of the successful conclusion of the research fellowship on automated elections, which I conducted on Apr. 21 – May 30, 2008 at the Oxford Internet Institute of the University of Oxford in the U.K.
I had informed the COMELEC en banc of this research when I was invited on Apri 15, 2008, Tuesday, to present to the En Banc the Halalang Marangal recommendations for improving the integrity of the next elections, and the En Banc had indicated its willingness to review the results of my research.
Enclosed are some of the papers I wrote or updated during my research at Oxford:
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HALAL Working Paper No. 1: “Double-entry accounting can improve both automated and manual elections”
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HALAL Working Paper No. 4: “Automating elections: computer have made mistakes too”
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HALAL Working Paper No. 6: “The Cost of Automating Elections”; and
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HALAL Working Paper No. 7: “Detecting automated election errors through statistical sampling”
Given our findings about the occurrence of errors in automated elections, some of which could have changes election outcomes, may I reiterate our recommendations for the use of double-entry accounting in the next elections as well as the implementation of a post-election statistical audit as described in our Working Paper No. 7 above.
We would be very glad to meet with the COMELEC en banc or with individual commissioners to answer questions regarding our proposals.
Respectfully Yours,
Roberto Verzola
Secretary-general, HALALANG MARANGAL
Tels. 371-2107, 0929-856-1930, Fax: 372-4995
Halalang Marangal 