MANILA — Parties and groups who want to examine the source code of the automated election system that will be used in the 2019 mid-term polls have only until Sept. 28 to submit written requests to the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez said the deadline for the request was provided under the poll body’s Resolution No. 10423.
“Comelec Resolution No. 10423 has set out the required contents and annexes of the written requests, and noted that interested parties should simply e-mail their written requests to the following email address: [email protected].” Jimenez said in a statement Thursday.
The requests shall be approved or denied by the Local Source Code Review Ad-hoc Committee.
“The local source code review is an important requirement of the automation law as it hopefully assures stakeholders and the general public that there are no hidden instructions lurking in the codes that tell the vote counting machines how to work,” Jimenez said.
Qualified to apply to review the source code are political parties or coalition of parties accredited by the Comelec; citizens’ arm organizations of the poll body; recognized information technology (IT) groups; civil society organizations with election advocacies; and the would-be host academic institution.
Reviewers qualified to be designated by would-be accredited groups or parties must be knowledgeable in computer programming languages and systems, particularly C/C++, Java application development, Bash, Object Oriented Programming Language, Unix-like systems, and Linux operating system.
Covered by the review are: the Election Management System; Vote Counting Machine; Consolidated Canvassing System; and other related systems.
It will have two phases — the preliminary review of the source codes of the Automated Election System (AES) used in the 2016 polls with initial enhancements for the 2019 elections, and the review of the final version to be used on Election Day.
After the end of the review, the reviewer may submit within five days a final report collating all of his or her findings for the entire duration of the review to the Commission.
Republic Act No. 9369 or the AES Law states that the commission shall “promptly make the source code available and open to any interested party or group, which may conduct their own review.”
This is aside from the separate source code review to be conducted by an international certification entity to be chosen by the Commission.
The source code is the human readable instructions that dictate what the automated election system will do. (Ferdinand Patinio/PNA)
