Comelec eyes direct contracting for electronic vote transmission

MANILA, Philippines - After two failed biddings, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said yesterday that it would directly negotiate with telecommunications companies for the electronic transmission of next year’s election results.

In a press briefing, Chairman Andres Bautista said the Comelec Bids and Awards Committee failed to find a qualified bidder for the P558-million contract for an electronic results transmission service, a situation that allows the Comelec to resort to direct contracting.

“We had two failed biddings and, therefore, we thought the prudent course of action to take is to directly meet with the telco providers. So we had a meeting (Monday) afternoon with PLDT-Smart and Globe and with the CAC (Comelec Advisory Council),” he added.

Bautista claimed the bidding failure could be a “blessing in disguise” because the Comelec will have the opportunity to deal directly with the service providers. 

For the 2013 polls, the bidding was won by Smartmatic-Total, which served as the intermediary between the telcos and Comelec.

“Now, instead of going through a third party, which is a foreign company, the Comelec as a government agency can negotiate directly with the country’s two top telcos, which are also Filipino (owned),” Bautista said.

The Comelec is hoping to increase the 76-percent transmission rate in the 2013 mid-term polls after the telcos gave assurance of wider service coverage this year.

The contracted telcos would need to provide the system, equipment and services needed in the transmission of voting results from the polling precincts to the city or municipal, provincial and national canvassing centers.

Meanwhile, Bautista said De La Salle University (DLSU) in Manila has agreed to host the source code review, including analysis of the election management system, consolidation and canvassing system and optical mark reader (OMR) machines, starting next month.

“This is a seven-month process – the base source code review will start on Oct. 1 and the customized source code review is scheduled to be undertaken in February 2016,” he added.

Source code pertains to the alpha-numeric human-readable instructions that will dictate how the OMR machines would run in the elections.

Bautista said the DLSU is willing to lend the Comelec a 200-square meter area equipped with 15 computers and covered by closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.