Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 5) — Groups led by former Information and Communications Technoogy Secretary Eliseo Rio renewed calls for a transparent and credible system for the 2025 midterm elections, and this means disqualifying technology provider Smartmatic for alleged irregularities in the general polls thee years ago.
“Ang immediate action ay ma-disqualify, hindi natin magamit ang Smartmatic sa future elections natin. Yun ay pwedeng magawa kaagad,” Rio said in a press briefing on Tuesday.
[Translation: The immediate action is to disqualify and not use Smartmatic in future elections. That can be done immediately.]
In June, Rio was one of three petitioners who asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to review the qualifications of Smartmatic.
RELATED: Petition asks Comelec to study possible disqualification of Smartmatic from 2025 polls
Their petition cited reported irregularities between the transmission logs and reception logs of election returns from the precinct level to the Comelec’s transparency server.
People’s Movement for Truth, Justice, and Reforms, Kontra Daya and the Computer Professionals’ Union echoed the sentiment.
They also called for a hybrid election — manual voting and counting on the precinct level, automated transmission — to ensure transparency.
The poll body earlier said it will use a new automated election system in 2025, and ditch the over 90,000 vote counting machines purchased from Smartmatic.
On the call to disqualify Smartmatic, Comelec spokesperson Rex Laudiangco said the poll body will refer the petition to its law department.
“Wala pong law on hybrid as of now,” he pointed out. “But we did better nga po, to do Fastrac which incorporated all the features in transparency audit and count po.”
[Translation: There is no law on the matter of hybrid elections as of now. But we did better, to do Fastrac which incorporated all the features in transparency audit and count.]
Transmission logs vs. reception logs
Rio reiterated his challenge to Comelec to provide him transmission logs since he was only given reception logs.He said the ‘true’ transmission logs are critical to check if the use of a single, private IP (internet protocol) address did not affect poll results.Comelec earlier stood firm that what was uploaded on its site and gave to Rio’s group were the May 9 transmission logs.
“Doon sa raw files doon namin nakita yung IP address na nagpadala ng election returns natin. Doon kami nagtaka bakit yung IP address ay private,” Rio explained.
“Ibig sabihin itong mga natanggap ng transparency server, ay nasa isang local area network or private network na ang may-ari ay Comelec.” he said.
[Translation: Seen in the files were the IP addresses that sent election returns, We wondered why the IP addresses were private. This means what the transparency server received is from a local area network or private network owned by Comelec.]
IT experts found a bulk of vote counting machines in Metro Manila, Cavite and Batangas transmitted election results using the 192.268.0.2 IP address.
Comelec Chairman George Garcia earlier said the new modems the commission purchased had a common IP address.
He said using a single IP address is not illegal, noting that the results were accurate.The random manual audit of votes showed 99.95% accuracy.
Kabataan party-list Rep. Raoul Manuel backed the clamor of the groups to seek answers to the supposed irregularities.
Last week, the Makabayan bloc filed a resolution in the House of Representatives seeking an inquiry into the evidence presented by Rio.
“Kung hahayaan natin yung mga unresolved questions noong 2022 elections ay nandiyan lang hindi nasasagot, yung at stake dito yung mga susunod na eleksyon,” Manuel said.
