Poll watchdog: 'Meet-me rooms' with undeclared servers used in elections

As early as the 2016 elections, a "meet-me room" infrastructure was already in place, hosting some undeclared queuing servers, according to an election watchdog group.

Nelson Celis, spokesperson of Automated Election System Watch (AES Watch), told ANC's "Future Perfect" Wednesday that they have been aware of this infrastructure even before the 2019 midterm elections.

"In our April 8 discussion, we also talked about the glitches that were reported by our Senate President. He had two privilege speeches in March 2018 and he was saying there were irregularities, and one of which is the queuing server, and the early transmissions," he explained. 

The so-called "meet-me rooms" allegedly host undeclared servers and intercept data from the vote counting machines to the Commission on Election servers, Celis said.

He said such "meet-me rooms" are against the Omnibus Election Code.

"In the Omnibus Election Code, sa manual elections natin, the ballot box goes directly to the municipal board of canvassing. Here, may intervention, iyong queuing server. It's not following the omnibus election law," he said.

He also said it is still irregular even if the Comelec has an explanation for it.

"Even if there's a plausible explanation, that's still irregular because it doesn't follow the law. The VCMs should be directly sending election returns to the municipal board of canvassers," Celis said.