Bongbong Marcos asks Comelec to audit poll servers
MANILA, Philippines — Vice presidential candidate Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on Wednesday asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to allow his team to conduct an audit on the servers used in the May 9 elections.
This follows the poll body's admission that a new script was introduced in its transparency server on May 9 at around 7:30 p.m.
"I am formally requesting this honorable Commission permit my team of IT experts and programmers, within three (3) days from receipt hereof, to conduct an audit of the Transparency Server and the Central Server, under the close supervision of this Commission and its technical personnel," Marcos said in a letter addressed to the Comelec.
The vice presidential aspirant noted that the alteration, which removed the only security feature of the server, might have also altered the data.
RELATED: Robredo supports Marcos’s request to conduct system audit
"If a single person can introduce 'cosmetic' change, how can we be assured that the same person and/or other persons did not introduce substantial alterations to the script and that the data has not been affected just easily," the senator said.
The Comelec and Smartmatic, however, denied that there was cheating in the move to introduce new script in the transparency server.
Comelec Chairman Juan Andres "Andy" Bautista said that a Smartmatic programmer Marlon Garcia merely replaced the "ñ" with "n" from some candidates' names.
READ: Comelec exec seeks probe of Smartmatic Company personnel barred from PICC
"It does not in any way change the results the counting and the canvassing of the votes and the source code of the automated election system," Bautista said in a press conference last week.
Meanwhile, Comelec Commissioner Rowena Guanzon slammed Smartmatic for breaching protocol when it changed a script or code in the transparency server. Guanzon said that Smartmatic may be subject to an investigation after breaking protocol.
- Latest
- Trending
