Elections chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. on Wednesday said the poll body is in the last part of its negotiations with Dominion Voting Systems, but he admitted that the chance of getting the source code remains slim.
“I’m still waiting. I’m still in negotiation with Dominion. Hopefully, something happens before the first week of March,” Brillantes told reporters.
“We are already on the last part of negotiations. (I am) not very much (optimistic). I would say at this point, it’s about 50-50,” he added.
SLI, however, cannot release it without a go-signal from Dominion which is in a legal battle with Smartmatic.
“The only pending lang is whether we can ask SLI to bring the source code here so that it can be reviewed by parties and interested groups. Right now, we already announced that we are having difficulty because Dominion does not want to give the go signal for SLI to bring it here,” he said.
But Brillantes reiterated that with or without the source code review by political parties, “we will proceed with the automated elections.”
“Whether we get it or not, we already have the binary code. This is regardless of the presence of the source code. Meron namang source code, hindi lang mare-review ng parties. but hopefully maayos na, we can get it, then that would settle the final issue pending before the commission. Tuloy tuloy na,” he said.
Source codes are human readable instructions or software while binaries are machine readable instructions.
He further said that the review of the source code is a requirement under law but “it is not a prerequisite for the validity of the elections.”
“As what happened in 2010, it was never reviewed by any party and yet we had the elections. Kaya lang para mawala yung credibility and acceptance issue, mas maganda sana kung andyan para hindi kwestiyunin ng iba na hindi nila nakita e. So mas maganda pa rin na makuha namin,” Brillantes said. — RSJ, GMA News
