Team DailyPedia
MANILA, Philippines. On Thursday, May 12, Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Andres Bautista denied cheating allegations after a change in the hash code of an election server was discovered.
“It is true that someone from Smartmatic corrected a script—from ‘?’ to ‘ñ’—but this does not affect the integrity of the numbers… There is no glitch,” Bautista told Radyo Inquirer 990AM.
The poll body dispelled the claims of the camp of Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the vice presidential candidate trailing behind leading candidate Camarines Sur. Rep. Leni Robredo. According to the Marcos camp, the change in the system hash code simultaneously occurred with the suspicious rise in Robredo’s votes.
Marcos’s lawyer Francesca Huang believes that the change increased the votes for Robredo.
Bautista claimed that the change in system, which he described “cosmetic in nature, will not affect election results. According to him, Smartmatic changed a program so that the letter “ñ”, a common letter in Filipino surnames, will appear as it is in the data package with elections results. Prior to the change, the letter “ñ” appeared as a question mark.
Meanwhile, an Information Technology expert, who refused to be named, supported the claims of Marcos that the hash codes of the transparency server changed. However, he emphasized that the change does not necessarily mean that there was a cheating attempt.
“I’m not saying na may dagdag bawas (addition-deduction) dito. What I am saying is there was an introduction of the script. Who triggered the introduction of that script? Who authorized its execution? Is it covered by rules or protocols to change set data? Is there any recording of the incident or of the change? There are none. The only people who can answer our question are Smartmatic and Comelec,” the IT expert said.
Reportedly, a Venezuelan national who works for Smartmatic was responsible for making the changes upon orders of project director Marlo Garcia.
According to the IT expert, the Venezuelan’s act violates Republic Act No. 9369 which prohibits “utilizing without authorization and tampering official ballots and election returns” and “electronic devices and their components.”
