Brillantes admits vulnerability of CF cards to poll saboteurs

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said Tuesday that the Compact Flash (CF) cards of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines have become a target for those who wanted to sabotage the recent May elections.

The CF cards are storage devices commonly used in digital cameras, video cameras, and other computers and gadgets. The PCOS machines use special CF cards to store encrypted election results which are also transmitted to the National Board of Canvassers.

“If I don’t want the results from one PCOS to come out, I will damage the CF card so nothing will be transmitted,” Brillantes told reporters in an interview.

“If you destroy a CF card, that is actually destroying election paraphernalia. It is very very significant and important. I think it will fall under an election offense … that is like destroying election documents,” he said.

Brillantes said that the broken CF cards could be a reason for the delays in transmissions. Part of Comelec’s contingency plan if a certain PCOS in a certain precinct cannot transmit was to have the CF card brought to the municipal or city level.

He also said that in the first automated elections in 2010, there were relatively less reported cases of broken CF cards.

“The significance of the CF cards [then] were not yet properly understood, but now everybody is talking about CF cards … that’s why there are those saying that it can be [vulnerable],” Brillantes said.

“We will prosecute anybody found to have deliberately destroyed CF cards,” he said.

Brillantes added that there could also be defective CF cards provided by the supplier.