I got this Economist story from colleague Ingo Boltz.

“System error: To err is human but to really foul things up you need a computer.”

Apparently the folks running the new voting system in the Philippines recently discovered some glitches in how their system tallied votes.

Update: Here is a snip from an AP story, in the Toronto Sun:

The Commission on Elections discovered a problem with the memory cards of the optical counting machines during final tests early this week, prompting it to recall the cards in about 76,000 machines already deployed in as many precincts across the archipelago.

With just days before 50 million Filipino voters elect a new president, vice-president and officials to fill nearly 18,000 national and local posts, the last-minute glitch fed suspicions of possible vote-rigging amid scattered political violence that has claimed dozens of lives.