THE Commission on Elections has trashed the first set of source codes it deposited in escrow with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas after its code auditor found errors in the “trusted build” submitted by election equipment supplier Smartmatic, Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said Wednesday.
At the same time, the election watchdog Fairness, Accuracy, Integrity, Transparency and Honesty in Elections urged the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court to resolve the cases filed against the Comelec and its supplier Smartmatic-TIM to ensure the implementation of security measures for the 2016 elections.
Bautista said the US software testing firm SLI Global Solutions Inc., its program auditor, found errors in the file copy, or ISO image, of the source code of the consolidated and canvassing system, one of three programs that will be used in the May 9 elections.
“We didn’t see it during the build process itself. But once we finished building that image, we sent it to the lab. We went to install it and realized that there was an issue,” said SLI senior test manager Michael Santos.
Santos said they also found errors in the code of the vote counting machines which was supposed to pick up the marks on the ballot. The VCM rejected one- to two-percent of the ballots because of small, out-of-place marks in the paper.
“The VCM was detecting them and rejecting them, which is a good thing because it is showing that it’s capable of catching just about any mark,” he said, adding that Smartmatic later made changes in the code so that the machine would not reject the ballots because of dots in the paper.
Santos said they did not find any errors when they checked the actual source code of the CCS when the source code for the election management system was placed in escrow with the central bank last Jan. 27.
But Santos said finding errors is normal during the source code review.
“We usually do several trusted builds before we reach what we call a ‘golden trusted build’, where no more issues are found and are considered as final. It’s just the nature of software development,” Santos said.
Consequently, the Comelec decided to disregard the EMS source codes that was placed in escrow with the BSP and replace it with a new and error-free one.
Bautista, on the other hand, allayed fears of a possible no-election adding that despite setbacks.
“They are our independent adviser,” Bautista said of SLI. “Their job is to look for things in the system that need to be addressed, improved or rectified. That’s why, over the past few days, they have seen certain findings, which should be addressed.”
Bautista said the discovery forced the Comelec to again move the scheduled turn over for escrow of the source codes to the BSP on Friday.
“These are the things that have been identified during the tests. That’s why we are addressing them now. It’s good that we have seen these problems now so that we can address them and we still have a lot of time,” Bautista said.
Bautista also assured that the Comelec is still on track and that the mock elections will push through as scheduled on Saturday.
“Problems have been contained, and we are all systems go [for] the mock elections,” he said, referring to the mock elections in 20 cities and municipalities where the poll body will simulate the elections, from deployment to voting to consolidation to transmission of results.
Meanwhile, FAITH.e expressed fear that the credibility of the elections will be jeopardized if the Ombudsman and Supreme Court do not immediately resolve the cases it filed against Comelec and Smartmatic.Ӭ
“We believe that the absence of these security features in the automated election system will violate the law of the land and place the credibility of the 2016 elections in doubt,” said Bishop Efraim Tendero, secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance.
Among the security features mandated under the law are the voter-verifiable paper audit trail, source code review, use of digital signatures of teachers and board of election inspectors, ballot verification through the use of ultraviolet detectors and implementation of a random manual audit after the polls.Ӭ
“We trust the Ombudsman and Supreme Court will uphold the law and protect the sanctity of the vote every Filipino. We pray they will allow God to use them to ensure that fairness, accuracy, integrity, transparency and honesty will prevail in the coming elections,” Tendero said.”¨