Smartmatic likely to win 2nd bidding for voting machines

Technical staff of Smartmatic demonstrate their automative vote reading machine at COMELEC in Intramuros Manila. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Election technology provider Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corp. may likely also win the contract to supply over 70,000 new optical mark reader (OMR) machines for the May 2016 elections.

This after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday announced it was set to issue a notice of award to Smartmatic-TIM for the supply of 23,000 OMR machines for P1.7 billion.

Comelec Chair Andres Bautista, in a press briefing yesterday, said the Comelec special bids and awards committee (SBAC) had issued a resolution to issue a notice of award to Smartmatic–TIM for the delivery of 70,977 OMR machines at a budget of P7,867,298,140.

“The SBAC 1 has submitted to the commission en banc a resolution recommending the issuance of a notice of award of lease with option to purchase 70,977 OMR machines to Smartmatic-TIM,” Bautista said.

On June 30, Smartmatic–TIM was declared the winner after it submitted the lowest bid for the 70,977 OMR machines at P6,286,382,682.72.

The bid subsequently underwent post-qualification evaluation by the SBAC.

Bautista, however, said the Comelec would not act just yet on the SBAC’s recommendation to issue a notice of award for the 70,977 OMR machines until after the bidding for the refurbishment of the Comelec’s 81,896 old precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines slated for Aug. 1.

“We’re not going to take any action in this regard because we are awaiting the results of the bidding for refurbishment,” he said.

The SBAC will open tomorrow the bids for the repair and refurbishment of the old PCOS units, which has a budget of P3,130,670,549.98.

So far, Smartmatic-TIM, Miru Systems Co. and Dermalog Identification Systems GmbH have bought the bid documents for the PCOS refurbishment.

Bautista meanwhile said the commission en banc had issued a resolution authorizing him to issue a notice of award to Smartmatic for the supply of 23,000 OMRs.

“The resolution is still being circulated (for signatures),” said Bautista.

Once the notice of award is issued for the 23,000 OMR machines, the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM will hold contract negotiations.

“As you know, it is still possible the parties won’t enter into a contract. It happened in the past, in which case there is no notice to proceed,” Bautista said.

Asked how long the contract negotiations would last, he said: “We have to expedite this. Time is of the essence. We are hoping this will be finished by the second week of
August.”

Using the Comelec’s 81,896 PCOS machines supplemented by the 23,000 OMRs is one of two options being eyed by the Comelec for the 2016 polls. The other option is to use only OMRs, combining the 23,000 and 70,977 units.