The Commission on Elections has announced that the review of the source code that will be installed on the automated counting machines will be held in February.

Comelec says the source code will still have to undergo testing by "an established international certification entity." In this case that's Colorado based IT consulting firm Systest Labs.

In case you're wondering, Systest has always been involved in voting systems and compliance testing. In fact this is one of the company's main services. Here's information from their website www.systest.com.

SysTest Labs is accredited by the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and by the National Voluntary Lab Accreditation Program (NVLAP) for certification testing of electronic voting systems. Our certification testing services give you access to the largest staff of full-time voting system test engineers available today.

Our expertise with a wide range of voting systems — including DRE and optical scan devices — ensures our teams are able to cycle up and complete your project in a timely manner. And our extensive knowledge of election processes, software, security practices and voting system industry standards assures your voting system will receive the proper level of assessment and testing.

Political watchdog Center For People Empowerment in Governance or CenPEG has been bugging the commission to release the source code. It claims that the code should have been released for review following the awarding of the poll automation contract to Smartmatic-TIM. The commission however maintains that, under the law, the source code may only be released after it has been certified. The law also states that the certification process may not go beyond three months before election day.

Comelec says the review will be open to all interested local developers and political parties. As a supporter of the poll automation project, I am hoping CenPEG and all those calling for the immediate release of the code will just relax and wait for February.