Commission on Elections chairman George Erwin Garcia INQUIRER.NET/RYAN LEAGOGO
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is expecting the initial batch of around 20,000 units of automated counting machines to be used in the 2025 midterm elections to arrive in the country by August.
Comelec Chair George Garcia said the poll body is at “full speed” in preparations for the national and local elections next year, stressing that they could not afford any delays in their schedule as they also need to get ready for the barangay elections in the same year.
“We hope that Miru can deliver the initial, more or less, 20,000 automated counting machines by August. And before December, they can complete the delivery of the 110,000 machines that we will use in the upcoming elections,” Garcia said in a radio interview on Sunday.
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“We need to follow the timeline so that the two elections in 2025 would go without problems. Let us remember that five months after the [May 12] national and local elections, we will also be conducting our [December] barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections,” he added.
According to Garcia, Miru started the mass production of the 110,000 automated counting machines “two weeks ago.”
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Comelec Commissioners Rey Bulay, Aimee Ferolino and Marlon Casquejo flew to Miru’s plant in South Korea earlier in the month to check on the step-by-step process of manufacturing of the automated counting machines.
They were also shown the machine’s features that the Comelec had asked for, including a faster way ballots could be fed into the machine, a summary of votes, which can be displayed on a screen, a cover on the screen to prevent peeking and a separate container for ballot receipts.
The Comelec awarded in March the P17.99-billion contract for the lease of a Full Automation System with Transparency Audit/Count (Fastrac) to the joint venture of Miru and three local companies—Integrated Computer Systems, St. Timothy Construction Corp., and Centerpoint Solutions Technologies Inc.
This was below the P18.82-billion approved budget for the project, saving the government around P839 million.
The contract includes 110,000 automated counting machines, election management systems, consolidation and canvassing systems, ballot printing, ballot boxes, and other peripherals.
The new machines will replace the 97,000 vote-counting machines procured from the London-based Smartmatic Corp., which were used in the previous three elections.