Political parties, civic groups have 1 month to check on the set of instructions for the vote machines

MANILA, Philippines--The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will start Friday its open-to-the-public review of the source code of the vote counting machines, but only the Liberal Party (LP) has expressed interest in examining it.

Based on the guidelines set by the poll body, parties or groups that are interested in conducting the review should file an application with the Comelec. The application should indicate the credentials of the reviewers assigned by the interested party, and the methodology that they intend to use.

Opening the source code review to the public is provided in the automated election system law. The Comelec has set a month-long review of the source code, which contains the set of instructions for the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.

The source code review will be held at the Project Management Office (PMO) at the main office of the Comelec in Intramuros, Manila. The reviewers will not be allowed to bring the source code outside the premises of the said office.

A read-only copy of the source will be made available for the review, so as to avoid tampering the codes. Reviewers are required to submit a report to the poll body after the review.

Electronic devices like laptops, mobile phones, cameras, and storage devices will not be allowed during the review.

Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said the Comelec is inviting all political parties and interested civic organizations to participate in the source code review. But so far, only LP has submitted an application.

Larrazabal said that they are willing to extend the month-long deadline if requested by interested parties. "If people want to extend, we extend it one more month," he said.

Meanwhile, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said that they will be turning over to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Friday a copy of the source code, pursuant to the automated election law.

According to Jimenez, the copy of the source code to be kept at BSP will be used for auditing purposes. After the elections, the source code kept at BSP will be used to verify if the election machines have used the same codes. (Newsbreak)