Press Release
December 20, 2012

KOKO ASKS IT EXPERTS: HELP REVIEW ELECTION SOURCE CODES

Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, PDP Laban President, today invited volunteer experts in the field of information technology (IT) to help review the various source codes to be used by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the 2013 elections.

Pimentel issued the invitation as chair of the Senate Committee on Electoral Reform and People's Participation, saying his office will be pooling the volunteer experts to review the source code.

The senator urged the IT experts, especially those from the youth sector, to lend a helping hand in the "patriotic" endeavor geared towards reforming and ensuring the credibility of the country's electoral system.

The source codes and the machines that used them, the EMS, PCOS and canvassing system, were first used by the Comelec in the 2010 elections.

"Our objective is to bring back the trust of the people in the Comelec and the elections itself. A review of the source codes would allow the detection of glitches, flaws and vulnerabilities in our electronic electoral system," said Pimentel.

"Such flaws in the software and the hardware that use them must be detected and corrected if the 2013 and succeeding elections are to be protected from sabotage or attempts to favor any particular candidate," said Pimentel.

A source code is any collection of computer instructions specifying the actions to be performed by a computer or a machine whose functioning is controlled by a computer.

Source codes that have flaws are vulnerable to hacking and misuse by unauthorized persons, including those who may wish to alter election results.

Pimentel said that the source codes of the EMS, PCOS and canvassing applications of the Comelec had been made available for review since February 10, 2010 in accordance with Republic Act 9369.

Pimentel calls on Comelec to be "less restrictive" in the review, allow source code to be examined outside Comelec premises.

News Latest News Feed