MANILA, Philippines - Until all the 82,000 machines to be used in the first nationwide automated elections are delivered and tested, Commission on Elections Chairman Jose Melo would be having sleepless nights.

Melo admitted that despite the assurance given by the winning consortium Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM), he is still worried that the machines may not be ready by election day.

“These are things that would wake me up in the middle of the night,” he told reporters Monday.

He traced the delay in the production of the machines to the case filed last August before the Supreme Court to nullify Comelec's award of a P7.2 billion contract with Smartmatic-TIM to supply 82,000 precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines for the May 10, 2010 presidential and national elections.

The contract was suspended while the case was pending. The Supreme Court eventually came out with a decision in September upholding the contract.

“That was (a delay of) one month. Smartmatic-TIM said they can do it. But until I see it, I'm worried,” Melo said.

According to the Comelec timeline, the first batch of 42,000 machines should be delivered by next month while the remaining 40,000 machines should be delivered in February.

A few weeks ago, Smartmatic-TIM transferred the manufacturing of the machines from Taiwan to Shanghai in China.

“The reason why we sent a (two-man) team to Shanghai is because I want to be sure that the machines will come on time,” Melo said.

He said they still have to test all the machines and afterwards report the systems test to stakeholders.

“Aside from the machines needing to be delivered here, they have to be tested," he said, then voiced out a what-if scenario: "What happens if all the 82,000 machines are here but they have not been tested, do we go partial manual or partial automated?”

“We're still not out of the woods,” said Melo, who left his own question unanswered.