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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Comelec receives petition seeking to disqualify Smartmatic from 2025 AES procurement

Comelec receives petition seeking to disqualify Smartmatic from 2025 AES procurement

Published Jun 16, 2023 09:34 am
A petition was filed before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) seeking the disqualification of Smartmatic from participating in the procurement for the 2025 Automated Election System (AES). The 10-page petition, according to Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia was received on Friday morning, June 16 via email. Among the petitioners is former Comelec Commissioner Augusto Lagman. Others include former Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary and Comelec Advisory Council Chairman Eliseo Rio, Jr; former Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) President Franklin Ysaac; and retired Col. Leonardo Odoño. According to the petitioners, based on the information and data from Comelec itself, they have discovered serious irregularities in the (AES) which Smartmatic had provided and deployed during the May 2022 elections. They said that it involves discrepancies between the transmission logs and reception logs of election returns from the precinct level to the poll body's Transparency Server (TS). "These material discrepancies, which remain unexplained to date, constitute a violation of the minimum system capabilities required by law and have created serious doubts on the integrity of the entire election process," the petition read. "Petitioners found out that based on data provided by the Honorable Commission itself, the Transmission and Reception Logs for the TS do not match. The TS was receiving and counting more votes than the Voting Counting Machines (VCMs) were transmitting from 7 p.m. to at least 9 p.m. on 09 May 2022," it further stated. The petitioners stated that the "serious and material irregularities" in the transmission and reception of election results in the AES provided and deployed by Smartmatic constitute a violation of the minimum system capabilities required by law, and if not "satisfactorily" explained, constitute sufficient grounds for disqualification of Smartmatic from participating for the 2025 AES. Asked on the legal value of such a petition that seeks to bar a would-be bidder, Garcia replied: "My answer at this point is premature. But surely this item will be included in our next En Banc agenda." Last month, Comelec unveiled the latest specifications it is eyeing to have for a new set of machines that will be used in the 2025 polls. Projected to restructure the AES, Garcia showed some of the contents of their finalized Terms of Reference (TOR) for their proposed machine. Their policy direction, the Fully Automated System with Transparency Audit and Count (FASTrAC), will employ a "hybrid election system within the machine".

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Commission on Elections (Comelec) comelec chairman george erwin garcia Commission on Elections automated election system automated election system (AES) smartmatic
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