The contract for the procurement of Automated Elections System (AES) Software for the Election Management System (EMS), Vote Counting Machines (VCMS) and Consolidation & Canvassing System (CCS) that will be used in the May 2022 polls has been awarded to Smartmatic.
"On behalf of the Commission en banc, the undersigned hereby awards to joint venture of SMMT-TIM 2016, Inc. and Smartmatic USA Corp the contract for the procurement of AES Software for the EMS, VCMs, and CCS to be used in the 2022 National and Local Elections," the Notice of Award issued by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) read.
The EMS sets up the automation of the polls and manages election-related data, and prepares the ballot templates for each town and city nationwide.
The VCM are the actual voting machines while the CCS is the one that reads incoming voting data, consolidates them, and canvasses the votes.
Smartmatic has been the technology provider of the Comelec since the 2010 elections.
The poll body used Smartmatic's Precinct Count Optical Scan machines in 2010 and 2013 as well as their vote counting machines in the 2016 and 2019 polls.
Smartmatic tendered a bid of P402,725,549.70 for the 1 Lot procurement project.