Let?s get this straight: Voting machines don?t stop electoral fraud. But they do minimize cheating in important aspects of the process of voting which have been manipulated by politicians since the first elections were held in this country a century ago.

Now that the automation of Philippine elections seems finally under way?courtesy of an P11.3-billion infusion of funds to automate the vote from the House of Representatives?it is important to revisit the lessons learned from last year?s limited use of counting machines and other technology during the local polls in Muslim Mindanao. In particular, it would be worthwhile to recall the observations made by the people who observed the Philippines? first-ever automated election.

The automated polls were held last Aug. 11 for around 1.6 million registered voters, who elected the governor, vice governor and regional legislators for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The Commission on Elections used 3,300 electronic voting machines in Maguindanao and 156 automated counting machines in Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Shariff Kabunsuan and Lanao del Sur.

Two different technologies, the touch-screen Direct Recording Electronic voting machines from Smartmatic-Sahi and optical mark readers of the rival the optical-scan voting system from Avante International Technology Inc. were used. For the first time, voters merely touched screens that had pictures of the candidates in the provinces using DRE machines. In places where OMR machines were deployed, voters simply shaded circles beside the candidates? names.

Some of the observers belonged to a group of 22 delegates from the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel), who came from seven countries in the region to observe the ARMM polls with the official blessings of the Commission on Elections. Anfrel found that in spite of automation, the age-old problems of cheating and vote-buying still persisted.

Anfrel executive director Somsri Hananuntasuk of Thailand reported incidents of minors being allowed to vote, poll officials influencing the voters or voting in their stead and vote-buying in the 443 polling precincts that the observers visited. According to the foreign poll watchers, voters were still being influenced?or even forced?to choose particular candidates, and the secrecy of the ballot was also violated since board of election inspectors often assisted voters and indicated which particular candidates they favored. In some areas, vote-buying was the rule instead of the exception, the Anfrel delegates said.

But the machines, Anfrel said, prevented cheating in the counting and the canvassing, including the hateful ?dagdag-bawas? or the vote-padding and -shaving that has been the bane of local elections for the longest time.

Other observers, such as the Church-based Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, came up with similar findings. Automation, the PPCRV said, may reduce human intervention in vote counts, but the technology does not necessarily prevent vote-buying, intimidation, disenfranchisement, and other election dirty tricks.

As PPCRV chairman Henrietta De Villa said: ?In the final analysis, the integrity of the elections depends on the board of election inspectors, the voters, and the politicians, but they can?t easily change the results on the election returns [anymore, with automated voting]. I would say that the space for cheating has narrowed.?

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Of course, automated voting isn?t supposed to cure all the problems that have beset our voting system since the first politicians decided that they could influence the outcome of any election by illegal means. For all we know, despite the claims of those selling the machines, hackers in the employ of these pols are already hard at work to get around the supposedly foolproof computer-based systems of the Comelec?s suppliers.

But that is not an argument against the automation of our often farcical elections, as the House of Representatives committee on appropriations noted when it approved the bill appropriating P11.3 billion to automate the national and local elections in May 2010. The only string attached to the approval of the outlay, apparently, is that the Comelec should ensure that the voters? list is updated so that the machines aren?t tricked into counting votes cast by dead or non-existent voters.

For the purposes of automation, the purging of old voters? lists will involve mandatory biometric registration, digital technology that will be able to immediately identify any voter using unique individual characteristics like fingerprints. Comelec has already been conducting biometric registration and the poll body estimates that nearly 50 percent of all qualified voters have already been biometrically scanned.

Even the most expensive high-tech counting machines will be worthless, after all, if voters? lists are not cleaned up before the elections in May next year. Even the politicians now currently serving in Congress understand that this is a basic requirement for automation to reflect the true voice of the people.

During last year?s ARMM elections, Gov. Zaldy Puti Ampatuan was reelected by more than 80 percent of the vote, together with his vice governor and members of the region?s legislative assembly. Despite the usual problems that attend elections in the Philippines in general (and Mindanao in particular), the casting of votes, canvassing and proclamation of winning candidates in the region all took place in record time.

But are we ready to repeat the Mindanao experiment on a nationwide basis, voting by machine for everyone from President down to city and municipal councilors? Both the House and the Comelec believe so.

Let?s just hope that they?re right?and that there?s still hope for the electoral process in this country.