MANILA, Philippines ? (UPDATE) A citizens? group asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to stop the signing of a contract between the Supreme Court and a technology consortium for the automation of the 2010 elections.

If the signing is not stopped, the Concerned Citizens Movement said the contract amount of P7.2 million should not be paid to the partnership of Dutch firm Smartmatic International and Filipino firm Total Information Management (TIM).

In their petition for certiorari, mandamus, and prohibition, the group, represented by lawyer Harry Roque, said the several provisions of the contract between Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM violated the law.

The contract is set for signing on Friday.

In case the Supreme Court voids the deal between Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM, the petitioners said there could be partial automation of the 2010 elections involving many companies or the so-called open system.

?We only need P2-billion to push through with the open system. This is P5.2-billion cheaper than current contract of P7.2-billion. This has been tested as well because we already tried this system in the election of the UP (University of the Philippines) student council,? Roque said.

The petitioners said there was no pilot testing of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines that Smartmatic-TIM would lease to the Comelec, a violation of Republic Act 8436 or the Automated Election System Law.

The machines also failed to meet the 0.005-percent error margin requirement set by law. The machines have a failure rate of two to 10 percent, the petitioners said.

Moreover, the required documents were not submitted before Smartmatic-TIM made its bid for the automation project, the petitioners said, adding the consortium also failed to include in its contract the manufacturers of the machines and software, Jarltech Corp. and Dominion, respectively.

?Smartmatic is only a buyer of the technologies, such that there is little that the Comelec can do to demand accountability in the event of such failure. It is clear from this discussion that Comelec does not exactly know who it is dealing with, and whether these parties are qualified and capable of delivering the products and services being offered for bidding,? petitioners said.