MANILA, Aug. 12 (PNA) — Smartmatic–Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation is convinced that the lease of new Optical Mark Reader (OMR) machines is the practical choice for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in the automated election system (AES) to be used in the May 2016 national and local elections.
Cesar Flores, Smartmatic president for Asia-Pacific, is referring to the leasing of new OMR machines by combining the 23,000 and 70,977 units.
“At this point in time, the lease of new machines is the only viable option for us given the timeline we have,” he said in a media forum in Manila on Wednesday.
Flores noted that acquiring new voting units will be less risky for both parties since the elections is just months away.
“With the new machines, there is no risk in the timeline. We can guarantee the delivery of the machines before the end of January 2016,” he added.
The Smartmatic official explained that using new machines will only have one source code certification necessary since there will only be one type of voting machine; a uniform training process for voter education, technical support, and contingency plans; and to prevent accusations of preference towards particular areas in terms of getting the new and old machines.
Earlier, the Comelec en banc already issued the Notice of Award to the Venezuela-based company for the provision of the 23,000 new OMR machines.
Likewise, the Comelec–Special Bids and Awards Committee (SBAC) 1 has recommended to the commission en banc to issue the Notice of Award for the 70,977 OMR machines to the service-provider in the 2013 and 2010 polls.
The poll body has yet to decide on whether it will reuse the 81,896 PCOS machines to be supplemented by the 23,000 OMR units or opt for the use of all new OMR units by combining the 23,000 and the 70,977 OMR units. (PNA)