A party-list lawmaker on Saturday expressed apprehension over the credibility of the upcoming 2016 national elections after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) awarded the contract to conduct the source-code review for the Optical Mark Reader (OMR) or Precinct Count Optical Scanner (PCOS) machines to the same company that reviewed source codes used in the 2010 and 2013 automated elections.
Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon of Kabataan said the Comelec announced that it has turned over the source code to the Colorado-based certification company SLI Global Solutions, which also conducted the source-code review in the 2010 and 2013 elections on Friday.
“The fact that the same company that conducted the source-code review in the past two automated elections has again been employed for 2016 don’t sit well with us. Combine this with the fact that Smartmatic will again provide new untested machines, and you’ll have a best-in-class recipe for election fraud,” he said.
The source code, a set of alpha-numeric instructions that essentially run the voting machines, is vulnerable to fraud, since questionable lines of code and even backdoor access by third parties can be inserted discreetly and compromise the result of the elections, the lawmaker said.
“It’s like the 2010 elections all over again with the shady machines and shadier source-code review. We call on the Comelec to ensure that the source code will also be opened for review by the public earlier, and not repeat the last-minute submission of source codes that happened in the past two elections,” Ridon said.
Ridon particularly noted that the software for the new OMR machines is newly developed and has not yet subjected to rigorous public testing.
The Comelec should ensure that the upcoming public source-code review should be exhaustive, unlike the “walk-through reviews” conducted in the past, he added.
“Public scrutiny over the preparations for the upcoming polls should intensify. We must scrutinize every step carefully, because if we don’t identify red flags early on, we might not recognize attempts to commit electoral fraud,” Ridon said.
Earlier, Ridon said that it is very suspicious for both the Comelec and Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp. to simply junk the more cost-effective refurbishment contract and proceed with the lease of 93,977 new OMR machines.
“Did the Comelec and Smartmatic intentionally abandon the refurbishment option to cover up glitches that may be discovered in the old PCOS machines?” Ridon said, explaining that the ulterior motive in abandoning the refurbishment option may be to “avoid uncovering glaring glitches in the old PCOS machines.”