Comelec sues local bet who claimed ACMs hackable
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday filed a criminal complaint against a lawyer running for vice mayor in Isabela province for claiming in now-deleted videos on Facebook that the automated counting machines (ACMs) to be used in the May 12 midterm polls could be hacked to generate false results.
Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia led the filing of the complaint in the Manila city prosecutor’s office against Jeryll Harold Respicio, one of the three vice mayoral candidates in Reina Mercedes, Isabela.
Comelec spokesperson John Rex Laudiango, chair of the poll body’s Task Force KKK (Katotohanan, Katapatan at Katarungan) sa Halalan, stood as complainant in the case.
Respicio is facing a complaint for violation of Article 154 (Unlawful use of means of publication and unlawful utterances) of the Revised Penal Code, in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act No. 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.
More cases
“[Respicio] showed a video on Facebook wherein he claimed that he can manipulate our vote-counting machines and saying there are backroom programs that can do something to manipulate the election [results]. And in fact, he showed in second video wherein he was actually, supposedly, manipulating the election,” Garcia told reporters.
“This is very dangerous. Aside from the misinformation, this is very dangerous because just think, the minds of the people are already being conditioned [that] our elections can be manipulated … The Comelec cannot allow it,” he added.
The Comelec chief said the task force would also file a disqualification case and an election offense case against Respicio. The poll body, Garcia said, would also file a disbarment case against Respicio and seek the revocation of his license as a certified public accountant.
“We want to prove that you can’t just make any statement that can destroy the credibility not just of the institution but [of] our elections … It’s not just Comelec that he is attacking here but the entire integrity of our elections,” Garcia said.
“In fact, we want to say: this is what the Task Force KKK would be doing whenever one will put on social media [any] misinformation or disinformation or fake news against a candidate, a party list group or [a] voter,” he added.
Created in July last year, the task force is mandated to fight misinformation, malinformation and disinformation in elections.
The Comelec “will take seriously any attempt to undermine the integrity of our elections,” Garcia said, “because the integrity of our elections is the very foundation of our democracy and [is the reason] why the people continue to believe that the election is part and parcel of our democracy.”
Acting on the task force’s request through the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group, Facebook on Feb. 10 removed Respicio’s videos that were posted on Jan. 24 and Jan. 25 on the page “Alvin & Harold” and preserved them as evidence for the case.
‘Exposing weakness’
In a statement to reporters, Respicio claimed he was being sued by the poll body for exposing a weakness in the ACMs.
“I was sued by Comelec because of the Facebook video where I exposed the severe weakness of the voting machines. When the machine is connected to the internet before the election returns are printed, there can be cheating in the [results]. Aside from [being] a lawyer, I am also an IT (information technology) expert,” he said.
Respicio also reposted on the page a link to a Jan. 24 “very short version” of his videos, stating in Filipino: “The voting machine should not connect to the internet before the printing of the election returns. When the machine is connected to the internet before the printing of the election returns, the source code for the counting of the votes can be changed through a backdoor and the vote count that will come out in the election returns will be different.”
“In the past elections, the voting machine is connected to the internet even before the printing of the election return. When this happens, it’s possible that vote count with Comelec and in the election returns are not the true votes made by the people,” he said.
In an interview on the program “Issue Spotted” on Teleradyo Serbisyo on Friday, Respicio clarified that he did not have an access to a source code of an ACM or to an actual ACM.
What he showed in his video, he said, was the “basic principles of taking advantage of vulnerability that is inherent to the Comelec’s process.”
Chair explains sequence
In a later interview with reporters, Garcia disputed Respicio’s claims, saying the ACMs will first print the election returns and the election board will post them, after which the ACMs will be connected to the internet to transmit the results.
“We don’t transmit the results immediately. Before we transmit, we will first print the election returns [so the] vote count will be immediately known prior to transmission. It seems his understanding is that each machine will immediately transmit, after which the election returns will be printed. It’s the other way around,” Garcia said.
“This means, prior to transmission, the vote count in every precinct will be known by all. How could you hack them? How could you change them? How could you interfere in the results when everyone knows them already? he added.
