Marcos’s camp hopeful Comelec will allow poll system audit

MANILA, Philippines – After formally asking the Commission on Elections  (Comelec) to conduct a system audit of the transparency and central servers of the Automated Election System (AES) before the official canvass at the House of Representatives (HOR), the camp of vice presidential candidate Sen. Ferdinand “Marcos Jr. said they are hopeful the poll body will grant their request.

The head of Marcos’s Quick Count Center, lawyer Jose Amor Amorado, said they are confident that the Comelec will approve their request of allowing an audit of the AES and be given “access to transmission logs, vote counting machines (VCM), USB devices, BGAN or Broadband Global Area Network, digitally signed election returns (ERs) and the public and decryption keys to open the transmitted files.”

"We remain hopeful that Comelec will grant our demand to open the AES for audit because I am sure the Comelec would want to uncover the truth in the unauthorized change in script of the transparency server," Amorado said.

Amorado cited that the integrity of elections is enveloped by doubts after a Smartmatic personnel conducted an unauthorized script change in one of the servers. He said this is the reason why they are confident of Comelec’s approval as the Commission and Chair Juan Andres Bautista wanted to remove doubts regarding the elections’ credibility.

On May 18, Marcos asked the Comelec to allow his team to conduct an audit on the servers used in the May 9 polls. His closest rival, Camarines Sur Rep. Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo earlier expressed support to his request saying it will be help erase doubts on the outcome of the elections.

"Viewed in this light, our demand for the conduct of a system audit is not only very reasonable but also absolutely necessary. If Rep. Robredo is really interested in finding out the truth and ensuring the credibility of the election results she should join us in our call for a system audit," Marcos’s campaign adviser Jonathan Dela Cruz said.

"The senator also wants to know the number of consolidation and canvassing system laptops/servers that were reported to contain rogue votes coming from the pre-election logical accuracy test and mock elections on election day; the municipalities, cities and provinces affected; and the measures the poll body took to rectify the supposed error," he added.

Dela Cruz last Friday also filed before the Comelec charges for violation of the Automated Election Law against Smartmatic personnel Marlon Garcia and three other persons in connection with the introduction of a new script into the transparency sever without permission from the poll body.

The HOR is scheduled to conduct official canvass on Wednesday.