Sen. Imee Marcos said on Monday, Jan. 8 that potential suppliers of the critical automated election system (AES) for the May 2025 polls must be pristine and free from any blemish.

"Time is of the essence for Commission on Elections (Comelec) to secure the lease of the automated counting system because the 2025 National and Local Elections are fast approaching," she said.

Marcos said that it is incumbent upon the Commission to thoroughly check the background and track record of the bidders as the people deserve clean and honest elections.

Comelec has already retired its 98,000 Vote-Counting Machines (VCM) last used in the highly-criticized May 2022 elections.

The poll body's proposed machine, under their policy direction, the Fully Automated System with Transparency Audit and Count (FASTrAC), will employ a "hybrid election system within the machine".

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia presented this in a press conference in May 2023 which is under their finalized Terms of Reference (TOR)

Much like its predecessors, the new machine called the Automated Counting Machine (ACM) that Comelec wants should have both Upgraded Optical Mark Reader (OMR) and DIrect Recording Electronic (DRE) capabilities. OMR is the same one used in past polls which involved shading the ballots. But this time, Comelec Chairman Garcia Garcia said that instead of that, it will be replaced with stamping. DRE or the touchscreen system, will be used for overseas voting and this feature will be disabled during the national elections here in the country.

"Kasi pag shine-shade mayroon pang issue ng 50 percent, 25 percent. Sasabihin kapag hindi daw 50 percent hindi na bibilangin ng machine...ngayon po hindi na, tatak lang (Because in shading there issues that 50 percent or 25 percent should be shaded. They would argue that if not 50 percent was shaded, the machine will not count it...but now they will just stamp it)," he explained.

He added that the Comelec en banc also decided that whoever will be providing the machine will also provide the papers that will be used, the stamp, as well as the other collaterals needed including the software for the AES except for transmission.

According to Garcia, the best feature of this new machine will be its "transmit-to-all" feature. When transmitting results, from the precincts he stated that it will no longer go through the transparency server and will just go straight to the majority party, the minority party, the citizens' arms, the congress, the media, and the poll body's central server. All of which should receive the same results simultaneously.

As of writing, bidding for the new AES is currently ongoing.