Smartmatic defends poll bid

MANILA, Philippines–Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corp. on Friday appealed to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to reconsider its bid proposal for new voting machines, saying it was disqualified based on a “flimsy technicality.”

“The Smartmatic joint venture, in fact, presented a complete, fully-responsive, and fully-compliant bid, which is very beneficial to Comelec and the Filipino taxpayers,” said Cesar Flores, Smartmatic president for Asia-Pacific, in a statement.

“We trust that the Comelec-BAC (bids and awards committee) will realize that this proposal, like all of our proposals, is advantageous to the government and will reconsider its decision,” he said.

Smartmatic was the country’s technology service provider during the 2010 and 2013 automated elections.

Flores cited their bid price proposal for the optical mark reader (OMR) machines, which is 31 percent lower than the P2.5-billion approved budget for the contract. The firm submitted a bid of P1.7 billion for the OMR.–Tina G. Santos