Comelec eyes mock elections by January 2025

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is considering conducting mock elections for the May 2025 midterm polls by second week of January next year.

"We're hoping everything will be completed and will pass before the end of December because we want to have mock elections by the second week of January," Comelec chairman George Erwin Garcia said on Monday during the contract signing between the poll body and PRO V & V, Inc. for the international certification of the 2025 automated election systems (AES). 

"Truth be told, we're already late by at least one month. We're hoping to be able to catch up and everything will be completed before the timeline we've arranged for the purposes of the mock elections," he added.  

Under Republic Act No. 9369, a technical evaluation committee "shall certify, through an established international certification entity (ICE) to be chosen by the Commission from the recommendations of the Advisory Council, not later than three months before the date of the electoral exercises, categorically stating that the AES, including its hardware and software components, is operating properly, securely, and accurately."

"This contract is a lot different from the previous two that we did. There was one single provider, we now have three providers. It's going to be a challenge for my team but we think we’ve laid out a timeline where we can get all this accomplished,”  PRO V & V, Inc. President Ryan Jackson Cobb said. 

Other Comelec activities for the 2025 polls will continue despite the pendency of the international certification, including the local source code review (LSCR), which started last month, according to Garcia.

The LSCR will include the source codes for the Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count (FASTrAC) and Online Voting and Counting System (OVCS) for overseas voters. 

The notes from the review will be submitted to the ICE as part of the certification process. —KBK, GMA Integrated News