Comelec won’t accept Smartmatic bid unless told by SC

FILE PHOTO: Test voters participate in an end-to-end demonstration of the automated election system or vote-counting machines at a hotel in Manila ahead of the May elections. Philippine Daily Inquirer/MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Unless ordered by the Supreme Court (SC), the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said it would not accept Smartmatic Philippines Inc.’s bid to supply the new automated voting technology for the 2025 midterm elections.

“It is highly likely that we won’t accept their bidding documents in case they file one because our decision (to disqualify Smartmatic) is executory,” Comelec chair George Garcia said on Tuesday.

He was referring to Comelec’s Nov. 29 decision to disqualify Smartmatic from all election-related projects due to the corruption charge filed against former Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista in the United States in connection with a 2016 contract awarded to the election technology company.

On Monday, Smartmatic appealed the ruling before the Supreme Court and asked the high court to stop Comelec from implementing its disqualification order.

Comelec’s special bids and awards committee has moved the deadline for submission and opening of bids from Dec. 12 to Dec. 14.

Smartmatic is one of three companies that bought bid documents for Comelec’s P18.8-billion contract, the others being Miru Systems Co. Ltd. and Pivot International.

Garcia said they expect the suppliers to submit their bids on the last day. INQ