Source Code of Counting Machines Urge to be Made Public

A non-government association is urging the COMELEC to release the source code of the software to be used in the 2010 national and local elections. The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPeg) already filed a petition for mandamus before the Supreme Court to compel the Commission on Elections in disclosing the source code of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines to the public.

The COMELEC already approved their request but until now there is no action from the agency. According to the qroup, the Commision on Elections will be violating Republic Act 9369 or the Poll Automation Law specifically Section 12 which states that once an AES technology is selected for implementation, the Commission shall promptly make the source code of that technology available and open to any interested political party or groups which may conduct their own review thereof. They also feared that the counting machines might be tampered if the code will not be made public.

CENPEG said that the voters must be assured that the machines themselves cannot be used as instruments for cheating, that they have been programmed correctly. Philstar.com identified other petitioners which include the National Secretariat for Social Action, University of the Philippines-Alumni Association, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Ecumenical Bishops Forum, Solidarity Philippines, and various IT experts.

However, there are also some people who are not in favor of making the source code public as it will be more prone to hacking which could be more dangerous because it can also tamper results.

There will be 80,000 counting machines that will be installed in polling precints while an additional 2,000 units will serve as a backup. The machines will make the automatic counting, canvassing, and transmission of votes.