The Philippine Online Chronicles

A day after Smartmatic toured members of the House of Representatives through their Cabuyao warehouse, representatives of political parties were allowed into the facility to observe the stripping of PCOS machines.

Stripping refers to the “reverse” process of packing the machine. The components are checked if they are complete. The CF cards are then relabeled so personnel can verify later if they were the original ones packed with a specific machine.

Present at today's inspection were representatives from Lakas-Kampi-CMD, Liberal Party, Bayan Muna Partylist, Gabriela Women’s Party, Kabataan Partylist, and Akbayan Partylist.

While they were allowed to watch, the representatives were not allowed to document the stripping.

According to Louie Campos, Smartmatic Warehouse Manager, there were around 53,000 PCOS machines in the warehouse. The others were either being shipped back or were still at their local hubs for the special elections.

Campos further explained that there were 76,347 primary and 4,000 contingency machines deployed for the May 10 elections. Of the 4,000 contingency PCOS machines, around 300 were reported to have been used as backup for faulty units.

Smartmatic initially pegged that stripping of the machines will be completed by mid-June. However, this might be delayed because of the special elections in Lanao.

Campos did not cite any schedule pertaining to the stripping, saying that the representatives would have to request the information from Comelec, and  explained instead that they had categorized the machines based on their state: (1) sealed with Comelec/BEI signatures and sticker, (2) sealed with tape only, (3) open.

They refused to give data on how many were sealed or shipped open and said that the information would have to be requested from Comelec. They said they have not (based on protocol) tampered with the machines before stripping.

The PCOS kit checklist includes: SAES 1800 PCOS machine (the main computer), main memory, backup memory, ibutton security key, backup security key, PCOS modem, sim cards, cables, antenna, security tie wraps.

For fine-tuning purposes, the sealed machines were the first to be stripped. One of the first machines stripped (coming from Brgy. 188, Caloocan) lacked the ibutton security key. It passed the testing procedure and was forwarded to the Memory Configuration Room for the verification of components.

It would take two months to strip all the PCOS machines, Smartmatic said.