Guanzon slams Smartmatic: They breached protocol and should be held liable

Cimmissioner Rowena Guanzon  of  COMELEC

Source: CNN PH Live Broadcast on Comelec News Conference

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rowena Guanzon on Thursday (May 12) called for an investigation of a protocol breach at the poll body’s transparency server in which a new script or computer command was introduced without prior permission from the poll body.

A visibly irked Guanzon told a news conference on Friday the move by poll technology provider Smartmatic to make a “cosmetic change” to the software that runs the server which churns out results of the elections had “certainly some effects on credibility” of the elections.

Marlon Garcia

Smartmatic Project Head

Smartmatic Project Head Marlon Garcia, just minutes before Guanzon spoke, demonstrated the server script edit process that was done. He said that the change was meant to replace the “?” symbol in the names of candidates with “ñ”. He assured that the vote results were not changed.
"Since it was a minor change, it doesn't need to be brought up to the (Comelec) chairman," Garcia insisted.

Guanzon said Smartmatic had no right to do what it did, and shouldn't have made any changes without the knowledge and permission of the Comelec.

"They should have not touched that program without our prior knowledge and our official consent. If you do any change perhaps just to make it look nicer, it’s our property," she said. "This automated election system is property of the Comelec and we are accountable to the people They are not supposed to touch it without our permission."

She added that Smartmatic should have informed the Comelec about the problem and the consequences.

Guanzon said she is thankful the results were not altered: "It could have been anything, it could have been worse and we are responsible for this election."

The Comelec commissioner apologized to the pubic and said they will continue to investigate the incident.

"We can assure you that the commissioners are going to study this," Guanzon said. "We will get to the bottom of this."