Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. announced Wednesday, Feb. 13, that the poll body may use the automated election system for the May 13 polls despite the absence of a source code or human readable instructions.
Brillantes made the pronouncement after a Technical Evaluation Committee gave its go-signal for Comelec to use the AES.
“TEC certified that the AES can operate properly, securely and accurately be used in the coming May 2013 elections,” Brillantes said.
“The TEC recommendation came after SLI certified that the AES is operationally suitable for use and affirmed its conformance with RA 9369 [Automated Election Law],” Brillantes added.
SLI Global Solutions, an international certification entity, holds the source code which might not be released to the poll body without the consent of Dominion, which has a legal battle with technology provider Smartmatic.
Smartmatic is the supplier of the Precinct Optical Count Scan (PCOS) machines for the 2013 polls.
With the TEC report, Brillantes said there is no need to worry about the source code.
But two IT executives ? former Commission on ICT chair Ivan Uy and former Comelec commissioner Gus Lagman ? said the poll body will be violating the Automated Election Law if it uses the PCOS machines without disclosing its source code. — Janice Cave, PNA
