Comelec awards P1.7 B deal for PCOS machines to Smartmatic

Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista at the Comelec office in Manila. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ARNOLD ALMACEN

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Thursday announced that it will use optical mark readers (Omr) and precinct count optical scan (Pcos) for the 2016 presidential and local elections.

“We have decided on the technology: Omr, Pcos machines,” Comelec Chair Andres Bautista was quoted as saying.

Comelec announced that it will award the P1.7 billion lease contract for 23,000 new Pcos machines to Venezuelan based Smartmatic-Total Information Management (Smartmatic-TIM).

The pronouncement was made a day before Bautista’s self-imposed deadline of July 31, the date when the election body should decide whether it will push for automated polls next year.

Aside from acquiring 23,000 new units, Comelec is also looking to refurbish used Pcos machines and lease 71,000 new machines.

Comelec has earlier disqualified Smartmatic to the bidding twice by the Bids and Awards Committee.

The poll body has also earlier bucked the hybrid system or the precinct automatic tallying system (Patas) which is said to cost P16 billion.