What was Smartmatic’s reason for skipping Senate hearing?

Smartmatic head for voter education Karen Jimeno, general manager Elie Moreno and sales technical coordinator Miguel Avila demonstrate how the vote-counting machines work during a forum at the Inquirer offices in Makati City. INQUIRER PHOTO

The Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Automated Election System (JCOC-AES) was supposed to conduct its hearing on the unauthorized change effected in the transparency server script that sparked allegations of fraud on Thursday.

However, on Wednesday afternoon, JCOC-AES chair Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III canceled the hearing, saying election technology provider Smartmatic bailed out at the last minute.

Sought for Smartmatic’s reason for missing the hearing, Smartmatic voter education head Karen Jimeno said the Commission on Elections requested the company to be present in Thursday’s proclamation of winning senators and party-list groups.

“According to Smartmatic, they were asked by Comelec to be on-call tomorrow for the proclamation of the senators and party-lists. That’s why they can’t attend the JCOC hearing,” Jimeno told INQUIRER.net.

The proclamation of the 12 new senators and winning party-list groups will be conducted on Thursday afternoon.

The other issues supposed to be discussed in tomorrow’s hearing are the 2,363 malfunctioning vote-counting machines, VCM transmission problems, and the accommodation of Smartmatic personnel at Novotel Hotel near the Liberal Party headquarters.