The Supreme Court on Monday was asked to order the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to prosecute Smartmatic officials who altered the script, or hash code, of the Comelec’s transparency server on the night of May 9.
The petition filed by Atty Eduardo Bringas, Bishop Reuben Abante and Moses Rivera said Comelec should conduct an “independent and thorough investigation” on the incident and eventually file a case against Smartmatic officers and other personnel who tampered with the servers.
Smartmatic Philippines project manager Marlon Garcia confirmed that the alteration was done, but said it was only for “cosmetic” purposes and not intended to rig the elections.
The correction was made after an observer noticed the presence of question marks in some candidates’ names where the letter “ñ” should have appeared.
Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista earlier said that “the change made in the script of the transparency server is merely cosmetic and will not in any way affect the results, the counting, canvassing of votes and in the source code of the automated election system.”
Petitioners said Bautista and the other commissioners who have made conclusions on the case should inhibit themselves from the investigation.
At the same time, petitioners also urged the high court to require the poll body “to explain the apparent erratic upsurge and abrupt fall in the discrepancy between the votes for the president and vice-president from the May 9, 2016 7:25pm; 7:45pm; 8:05pm; and 8:25pm; specifically, where the votes came from and where they were later assigned.”
They said IT experts should be allowed to examine the source and hash codes and provide the petitioners and the public a copy of the final report of the Random Manual Audit from the 715 precincts that were audited pursuant to the Comelec rules.
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