In 2007, because of accusations of electoral fraud in electoral processes in the previous 4 decades, the Commission on Elections in the Philippines (COMELEC) initiated a nationwide program to automate the electoral process for the 2010 presidential elections. With the support of the Congress, funding was provided for implementation of the first nationwide election conducted with optical mark reading equipment with the goal to increase transparency and credibility of the electoral process. This program included a key provision requiring third party, independent testing by an internationally accredited voting system test authority be used to certify the system. SLI received an RFI from COMELEC as a recommended international certification entity (ICE) by COMELEC Advisory Council (CAC).
Scope of Project:
- Delivered the comprehensive testing and audit results required to support a timely go/no go decision for electronic elections.
- Conducted a full certification test of a new voting system in six months as opposed to more typical US schedules that average approximately 1 year or more.
- Verified the performance, accuracy and security of the system’s software and hardware according to applicable portions of the EAC VVSG and to the RA 9369.
- Performed code review for 1.4 million LOC, documentation review, hardware testing, functional testing, electronic transmission/communication testing, trusted build, recommendations on field test and mock election plans.
- Provided transparency to citizen stakeholder and political groups
Eighty-thousand scanning machines were deployed in the over 7,000 islands that comprise the Philippine archipelago using a complex transmission protocol that had never been used before. SLI’s project delivered the comprehensive results needed to support a timely go/no go decision for electronic elections. In order to accomplish this, SLI tested the performance, accuracy and security of the system. SLI executed a full audit, review, and test of all system characteristics by applying innovative test methods that covered extreme technical requirements and logistical challenges.
SLI engineers developed a load generation tool that was specifically tailored to combine actual test traffic on the system along with simulated vote data. The combined traffic modeled load and expected transmission behavior. The results of the simulated load test indicated that the system would be able to handle the projected transmittal rates and the results on election-day confirmed our findings.
The election was held on May 10, 2010 and has been hailed as one of the most orderly and successful elections ever conducted in the Philippines.
What we did
- Source Code Review
- Security and Functional Testing
- Configuration Verification
- Electrical and Environmental Testing