1.

Impact of the internet, especially social media, on electoral/voting

choices
 Impact of the internet
o The internet is the new mass medium that affects many aspects of everyday
life. Empirical evidence during the initial phase of the internet suggests that a
“crowding-out” of political information occurred, which affected voter turnout.
The interactive social media and “user-defined” content appears to have
reversed this, but there is a downside: voters can now be personally identified
and strategically influenced by targeted information.

o Regulating the internet may be necessary, but it can also stifle innovation.
Therefore, policymakers should consider introducing measures to educate
voters to become more discriminating in their use of the internet.

o Understanding the internet’s effects on the consumption of information is also

relevant for how voters view labor policies.
 Key findings Pros & Cons
Pros
o The internet can provide direct and cheap access to a large pool of information.
o More information can lead to users making better-informed decisions.
o Low entry costs facilitate the dissemination of information, foster competition,
and increase the variety of information.
o More competition in the media market might imply less filtering by editorial
offices and less pre-selection of information.
o The emergence of social media has created new participation and
dissemination platforms.
Cons
o Users have to learn how to filter online information efficiently, which takes
time.
o If consumers cannot filter the relevant information they may face an
information overload and consequently make ill-informed decisions.
o Internet-based technologies, such as search engines, help filter information but
may also introduce a new source of bias.
o The crowding-out of traditional media may lower the quality of information
online.

How Does Social Media Affect Elections?

 The rise of social media during this phase was additionally supported by the rise of
mobile internet technologies and smart phones. More experienced users have learned
to filter online information more efficiently, and are supported in their searching and
sorting by new social media applications that help to structure the information access
 and dissemination process. This has implications for the relevance, quality, and focus of
the information that is available to users and, consequently, their voting behavior.
 Political leaders leveraged new media to impact politics since the 1930s. Franklin D.
Roosevelt’s implementation of the radio and John F. Kennedy’s usage of television
bridged communication gaps between the public and politicians to signify and lead to
political success. Social media and voting can be seen as a direct manipulator
of elections
 With candidates shifting numerous resources to social media campaigns, understand
how social media influences elections and what voters can do to guide the web wisely. 
 When Facebook users were shown an “I voted” button and a message emphasizing
their friends who had already voted, they were far more likely to vote than if they were
shown an informational message.  
 In addition, the effects of social media on individual voting are shown by having
Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat, or Instagram design social media platforms to
curate information for people based on specific factors: 
 Demographic information, such as gender, age, and location. 
 Interests, such as music, soccer, or photography. 
 Engagement, such as clicks, “likes”, or time spent on a page. 

 However, the negative side regarding social media changing the way people decide for
who to vote to is the specific plan some social media platforms hold regarding the
country’s politics. For example, during the 2016 American elections, social media
increased the pressure through thousands of biased posts, especially during the last
month of the election. This contributes to changing many people’s opinions and minds
on political issues, therefore changing their voting candidate and having them vote
after being reluctant to vote. 

 The social media outlet achieved its goal and agenda by letting many people vote for its
candidate. Even after the results are out, social platforms can play a significant role in
casting doubt on the results and driving public opinion to refuse them, leading to
demonstrations erupting in the country. 

Convincing People to Vote 

 A specific message is shown on people’s social statements at the top of their ‘News
Feed’, encouraging the user to vote, providing a link to find local polling places and a
clickable button reading ‘I Voted’

 Social media has played a massive role in many aspects of people’s lives, including
deciding their voting directions. This has also resulted in a change in election results and
political issues and debates between candidates. What was shown as a simple tool for
communication turned out to be a tool to manipulate people’s perceptions of what is
right and wrong. 
  Social media will play a prominent role in the campaign strategy of
candidates during the elections due to the increasing reliance of Filipinos
on social media and the face-to-face restrictions associated with the
pandemic.
 Reliance on social media in the campaign strategy of candidates is expected to rise
given the increased usage by Filipinos of this technology, and the physical restrictions
imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. While it remains doubtful that a candidate can win
the presidency through a successful social media strategy alone, there is a realization
that this type of technology is becoming an indispensable part of the contemporary
electoral “political machine”

 Experts argue that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc., were not
intended for political purposes at the outset. But as IT technologies evolved, many have
noted their potential for political mobilization. Driven by profit, big social media firms
have taken advantage of how users share their information, including their political
ideologies, opinions, and policy viewpoints. It is now fairly established that
disinformation has become rampant because of its power to harness emotive reactions
and therefore gain more engagement from social media users. Social media algorithms
built within the technology itself seem to fit well with the nature of electoral
campaigning.

 Election campaigns so far have also exhibited a more intense and varied use of social
media to sow disinformation and fake news to either support or undermine certain
candidates. Unfortunately, these concerns can currently not be addressed, given the
inadequate regulations and the absence of a specific law that regulates social media
use in electoral campaigns in the Philippines.

The impact of social media will be more evident in the 2022 Philippine national and local
elections to be held on 9 May 2022. Given the restrictions posed by the Covid-19 pandemic,
candidates have relied more on social media for their campaigns and voters have tapped these
applications as their source for news and other election-related information. Here are some
expectations on the possible role of social media in the upcoming polls:

 Disinformation will be more prevalent. While previous elections focused more on

candidates and parties, it is expected that disinformation will affect other aspects of the
electoral process. Like electoral exercises in other countries, disinformation can be
applied to the electoral process, casting doubt on the outcomes of the elections. Wrong
information deliberately crafted can also suppress voters from casting their ballots on
election day.

 The current pandemic lends more critical importance to social media. Given their ability
to rapidly spread information, social media has been a powerful tool of communication
during the pandemic. However, the lack of an effective regulatory regime within the
 country has allowed social media apps to spread disinformation about pandemic
situations in voting precincts and other important sites. At present, the country’s
election commission admits that without a law regulating social media campaigning,
their ability to detect and sanction disinformation is severely limited.

 The toxic nature of electoral campaigning is intensified by social media. As the

algorithms of social media apps like Facebook feed users with more content that they
want.

Considering these challenges, regulation of social media use must be diligent, decisive, and
consistent. Even if the country’s Commission on Elections can put in place a clear policy on
social media campaigning, implementation may face its own challenges. Regulation must also
keep up with the latest trends that place disinformation in a totally different level, for example
the use of “deep fakes” or computer-generated videos which “make it appear that a particular
personality is saying or doing something that he or she didn’t actually say or do”. In addition,
the proliferation of fake news has now moved from social media apps like Facebook and Twitter
to messenger apps like WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger where posts or messages are
not as publicly shared as the usual apps. This is a clear blackhole in social media regulation.

https://fulcrum.sg/stronger-social-media-influence-in-the-2022-philippine-elections/

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2012/11/06/social-media-and-voting/

https://wol.iza.org/articles/effect-of-internet-on-voting-behavior/long
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
312582662_Impact_of_Social_Media_on_Political_Efficacy_and_Vote_Intention_A_Case_of_E
ducated_Youth
 2. How does automated election system work in the: Philippines

How does the PH Automated Election System work?

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has held automated elections in the Philippines
since 2010. Compared to manual elections of years past, voters get an idea on who will be the
country’s next leaders much earlier, because the vote counts are electronically transmitted
immediately after polling precincts close.

However, the automated polls are not without its flaws. Over the years, it has faced
criticism over its implementation. Comelec then responded with tweaks and fixes in the system,
in its efforts to make the system more reliable and transparent.

Election management system

At the core of the Automated election system (AES) is the election management system
(EMS), which sets up the automation of the polls and manages election-related data. The EMS
imports pre-election data files, like geographical subdivisions, voting jurisdictions, number of
registered voters, candidate details, and information on the members of the board of election
inspectors (BEI). It also defines and prepares ballot templates for each town and city
nationwide.
In addition, the EMS creates location-specific configuration files for the voting machines and
canvassing centers, and generates report templates for the election results.
The ballot designs and configuration files are created by a program called an Election
Event Designer (EED), while an Election Programming Station (EPS) loads the configuration files
into secure digital (SD) cards and “iButton” security keys.
The vote-counting machines
 The board of election inspectors (BEIs) use these “iButtons” to activate the most widely-
known component of the current AES: the vote-counting machine or VCM. It was
previously known as the precinct count optical scan or PCOS machine.

 These VCMs are deployed in clustered precincts nationwide and in select overseas
posts. Each clustered precinct is generally made up of established precincts grouped
together to meet the assigned maximum number of voters per VCM.

 On election day, voters feed their ballot into the VCM, which then counts the ovals that
voters have shaded to vote for their preferred national and local candidates.

 The VCMs also print a voter receipt, so that the voter can verify if the machine read
their ballot properly. Also known as the voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), this was
first deployed in the 2016 elections after much legal controversy. To protect ballot
secrecy and prevent use of these voter receipts for vote-buying, the voters are not
allowed to take these receipts outside of the polling precincts. Instead, they will be
surrendered to poll officers after the voter’s quick verification.

 The digital images of all scanned ballots are encrypted and saved on SD cards in the
VCMs, while the physical ballots go directly into the ballot boxes below the machine.

 The VCMs are operated by a software provided by Dominion Voting Systems and have
been licensed to Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp since the 2010
polls.

 This software, as well as those used by other components of the AES, shall go
through source code reviews by accredited local groups and organizations,
and certifications by an international certification entity.
 Canvassing, transmission

 When polls close on election day, the VCMs transmit the vote counts – also known as
election returns or ERs – to the different servers and canvassing centers in the AES.
 The consolidation/canvassing system (CCS) receives and processes these ERs. The
software used by the CCS, called the real-time election information system (REIS), reads
incoming data and canvasses the votes.
 Meanwhile, the electronic results transmission service (ERTS) handles the actual
transmission of votes. The main channel is through public telecommunications
networks, with transmission via satellite as back-up.
 Modems were used with the VCMs to help transmit ERs, and installed in canvassing
centers to receive ERs. Each machine can only transmit once. Individual machines are
traceable through IP address, clustered precinct ID, and MAC address.
 From the VCMs, the ERs are transmitted to the central server, the transparency server,
and the municipal board of canvassers (MBOC).
 The transparency server transmits to the media server which links to the workstations of
election watchdog groups, political parties, and media who are to access real time
results.
 There is also a back-up server, which only kicks in when the central and transparency
servers fail.
 As for the “ladderized” transmission of votes via the different canvassing levels, from
the MBOC, the results are transmitted to the provincial board of canvassers (PBOC),
where the results are collated and then transmitted to the national board of canvassers
(NBOC), where the results for national positions are canvassed.

https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/91663-philippine-automated-election-sytem-explained/
How does automated election system work in the: United States

Electronic voting in the United States

 Electronic voting in the United States involves several types of machines: touch screens
for voters to mark choices, scanners to read paper ballots, scanners to verify signatures
on envelopes of absentee ballots, and web servers to display tallies to the public. Aside
from voting, there are also computer systems to maintain voter registrations and display
these electoral rolls to polling place staff.
 Most election offices handle thousands of ballots, with an average of 17 contests per
ballot,[1] so machine-counting can be faster and less expensive than hand-counting

Optical scan (marksense)[

 In an optical scan voting system, each voter's choices are marked on one or more pieces of
paper, which then go through a scanner. The scanner creates an electronic image of each
ballot, interprets it, creates a tally for each candidate, and usually stores the image for later
review.
 The voter may mark the paper directly, usually in a specific location for each candidate, then
mail it or put it in a ballot box.
 Or the voter may select choices on an electronic screen, which then prints the chosen
names, usually with a bar code or QR code summarizing all choices, on a sheet of paper to
put in the scanner.[7] This screen and printer is called an electronic ballot marker (EBM)
or ballot marking device (BMD), and voters with disabilities can communicate with it by
headphones, large buttons, sip and puff, or paddles, if they cannot interact with the screen or
paper directly.
 Most voters do not look at the machine-printed paper to ensure it reflects their choices.
When there is a mistake, an experiment found that 81% of registered voters do not report
errors to poll workers. No state requires central reporting of errors reported by voters, so the
occasional report cannot lead to software correction. Hand-marked paper ballots more
clearly have been reviewed by voters, but some places allow correction fluid and tape so
ballots can be changed later.

Direct-recording electronic (DRE)

 In a DRE voting machine system, a touch screen displays choices to the voter, who selects
choices, and can change their mind as often as needed, before casting the vote. Staff
initialize each voter once on the machine, to avoid repeat voting. Voting data are recorded in
memory components, and can be copied out at the end of the election.
 Some of these machines also print names of chosen candidates on paper for the voter to
verify, though less than 40% verify These names on paper are kept behind glass in the
machine, and can be used for election audits and recounts if needed. The tally of the voting
data is printed on the end of the paper tape. The paper tape is called a Voter-verified paper
audit trail (VVPAT). The VVPATs can be tallied at 20–43 seconds of staff time per vote (not
per ballot)
 For machines without VVPAT, there is no record of individual votes to check. For machines
with VVPAT, checking is more expensive than with paper ballots, because on the flimsy
thermal paper in a long continuous roll, staff often lose their place, and the printout has each
change by each voter, not just their final decisions.