8 groups accredited to check OMRs

MANILA, Philippines - Eight groups have been accredited to review the base source code of the optical mark reader (OMR) machines to be used in the polls next year.

Mostly political parties, these groups will assess the integrity of some 93,970 OMR machines, according to Commission on Elections Commissioner Luie Guia. 

“There are eight groups that signified intention to review the source code,” he said. “That will continue in the next seven months.” 

The eight are the Liberal Party, United Nationalist Alliance, Nationalist People’s Coalition, Unang Sigaw (Nueva Ecija local party), Bagong Bayan Party, Lakas-CMD, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting and Center for People Empowerment in Governance.

The source code pertains to alphanumeric human readable instructions that dictate how the OMR machines should run.

Guia has expressed hope that more groups will take part in the review.

“In principle, we want to be as inclusive as we possibly can... We were hoping that there will be more,” he said.

The local review, which will initially involve the baseline source code, is set to start on Oct. 12 at the De La Salle University in Manila. The next phase will be the customization and configuration of source code.