Comelec urged to drop touch screen system

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to drop its plan to pilot test the use of touch screen voting technology in Pateros in the 2016 polls.

Pimentel, who heads the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Automated Election System, said Comelec should just use the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machine.

Pimentel said the pilot testing of the direct recording electronic (DRE) system would already form part of the official election results.

“If the Comelec wants to test the DRE system then it should be unofficial only and on the account of the vendors by way of a demonstration,” he said.

Last November, the Comelec bared plans to pilot test the DRE voting technology in Pateros, which has about 24,000 to 28,000 registered voters.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said Pateros was chosen because it is “very small, very manageable and very compact.”

The DRE technology will allow voters to choose their candidates by merely touching the screen. The voting, counting and final transmission of results to canvassing centers will be fully automated.

On the other hand, a rival firm sought the disqualification of the lowest bidder for the contract to supply the Voter Verification System (VVS) to be pilot-tested in the May 2016 elections.

In an 11-page motion filed before the Comelec, Indra Sistemas S.A. asked for the disqualification of the joint venture of Safran Morpho and Comfac Corp. for failing to comply with the requirements.

Indra said the Comelec should reverse an earlier resolution and declare Safran-Comfac as ineligible to participate in the bidding.

The Comelec’s Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) declared only Indra, Safra Morpho and Comfac Corp. as eligible to bid for the P727.2-million project.

But the BAC noted Safran Morpho and Comfac Corp. submitted the “lowest calculated bid” of P470,910,720, compared to Indra’s bid of P581,672,000.

While it submitted the lowest calculated bid, Indra claimed Safran-Comfac should still be disqualified for failing to submit the required VVS demo unit during the submission of bids.

“In light of its failure to include a demo unit of its VVS machine in its bid submission, the non-discretionary ‘pass/fail’ criterion should have applied, and accordingly, the joint venture’s first envelope should have been marked as ‘failed’ and its financial bid should not have even been considered,” Indra explained.

Indra further claimed that Safran-Comfac joint venture also failed to submit a soft copy of the technical documentation and of the source code as required by the BAC.

“The importance of a soft copy of the source code cannot be overlooked. Once an automated election system technology is selected for implementation, the Comelec is mandated to make the source code available and open to any interested party or group which may conduct their own review,” Indra pointed out.

Safran-Comfac also allegedly did not indicate the contract amount and value in the sworn statement of all ongoing and completed contracts and must therefore considered to have submitted “patently false and erroneous” calculation.

“Since its bid security not being executed in the proper form; and their omnibus sworn statement not being in the prescribed form,” Indra said Safran-Comfac must be disqualified.

Indra then asked the BAC to declare their company as the firm with the lowest calculated bid for the VVS project and the only one allowed to proceed with the post-qualification stage.

According to the Comelec, the VVS will be installed at the polling precincts and they will run through the biometrics records to determine if a voter is eligible to vote in 2016.

The machines will be partnered with the 23,000 optical mark reader (OMR) machines that the Comelec is acquiring to augment the old PCOS machines.

Pimentel also asked Comelec to allow Filipino experts to observe how technology provider Smartmatic is undertaking the diagnostic testing and repair of 80,000 PCOS machines to be used in the next elections.

He said this would ensure transparency after the poll body had awarded to Smartmatic the diagnostic testing and repairs of the PCOS machines at a cost of P268.8 million.