Section 2January 23, 2007, Sec./Art. 2

Section 2 of Republic Act No. 8436 is hereby amended to read as follows:

"SEC. 2. Definition of Terms. - As used in this Act, the following terms shall mean:

"1. Automated election system, hereinafter to as AES - a system using appropriate technology which has been demonstrated in the voting, counting, consolidating, canvassing, and transmission of election result, and other electoral process;

"2. Electronic transmission - conveying data in electronic form from one location to other;

"3. Official ballot - where AES is utilized, refers to the paper ballot, whether printed or generated by the technology applied, that faithfully captures or represents the votes cast by a voter recorded or to be recorded in electronic form;

"4. Election returns - a document in electronic and printed form directly produced by the counting or voting machine, showing the date of the election, the province, municipality and the precinct in which it is held and the votes in figures for each candidate in a precinct in areas where AES is utilized;

"5. Statement of votes - a document containing the votes obtained by candidates in each precinct in a city/municipality;

"6. City/municipal/district/provincial certificate of canvass - a document in electronic and printed form containing the total votes in figures obtained by each candidate in a city/municipality/district/province as the case may be. The electronic certificates of canvass shall be the official canvass result in the aforementioned jurisdictions;

"7. Paper-based election system - a type of automated election system that use paper ballots, records and counts votes, tabulates, consolidates/canvasses and transmits electronically the results of the vote count;"

"8. Direct recording electronic election system - a type or automated election system that uses electronic ballots, records, votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical component that can be activated by the voter, processes data by means of a computer programs, record voting data and ballot images, and transmits voting results electronically;

"9. Counting center - a public places within the city/municipality or in such other places as may be designated by the Commission where the official ballots cast in various precincts of the city/municipality shall be counted. Polling places or voting centers may also be designated as counting centers;

"10. Continuity plan - a list of contingency measures, and the policies for activation of such, that are put in place to ensure continuous operation of the AES;

"11. Disabled voters - a person with impaired capacity to use the AES;

"12. Source code - human readable instructions that define what the computer equipment will do; and

"13. Station- refers to a polling place, counting center, municipal or provincial canvassing center."