Awarding of ARMM poll automation contracts seen Friday
By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:52:00 05/06/2008
Filed Under: Government, Technology (general), Elections
MAKATI CITY, Philippines -- Commission on Elections (Comelec) chair Jose Melo said the poll body expects to award this week contracts to suppliers bidding for the automation of elections in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).
Melo said the Commission en banc expects the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) to finish with the demonstration by several technology suppliers late Tuesday.
"We're doing this without legal cover. We need this. We want to automate elections because if we don't do this in 2008 for ARMM, how can we proceed with automation in 2010? We might as well resign if we can't do it," Melo said in a telephone interview.
In a separate interview, Comelec commissioner Rene Sarmiento said that two technology suppliers are "fine tuning" their optical-mark reader technology to conform with the specifications of the poll body.
Sarmiento said the Comelec BAC has also asked bidders Avante and ABS to demonstrate their technologies prior to the awarding of the contracts.
Another bidder, Smartmatic has also finished its demonstration for its direct recording electronic (DRE) technology with the BAC, he said.
"We're bent on proceeding with the poll automation," Sarmiento said, noting that he shared the sentiment of Melo who mentioned that he wanted to make the automation of elections in the country his legacy.
Sarmiento said that the Comelec en banc will proceed with poll automation in all the provinces of ARMM.
Based on the recommendations of an advisory council, Comelec would be using two technologies for the ARMM elections: DRE and optical-mark reader.
The Department of Budget and Management has allocated about P867 million for the automation of the elections in ARMM.
The advisory council is the body of expert advisers created under Republic Act 9369 and given the task of recommending to the Comelec which technology to use for the automation of elections.
DRE uses touch-screen or touch-pad technology for voting, while OMR requires voters to complete a paper-based ballot which is then fed into a specially designed machine, similar to a scanner.
The advisory council had recommended a six-month schedule for the deployment of the automated election system. This will also include training of voters and the users in Comelec and for "mock elections."
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