Smartmatic keeping operations in PH

Smartmatic said Tuesday it will continue providing a secure voting technology and transparent election system to the Philippines, even as the government is in the process of selecting a new concept for an alternative automated election system.

“Smartmatic has been a leader in providing an efficient, secure and transparent automated election system in many counties and in the Philippines. We want to continue this and strengthen our partnership with the government in providing a secure, faster and credible election system,” Smartmatic Asia-Pacific president Ramaakanth Sake said.

Smartmatic joined the AES Technology Fair of the Department of Information and Communications Technology on July 15 which allowed various local and international providers to present their concept or prototype of an alternative AES which may be used for the 2022 national and local elections.

Smartmatic presented its new direct recording electronic voting machines which utilize a touchscreen to eliminate the need for paper ballots and reduce the likelihood of read errors. The touchscreen would need a voter’s fingerprint before it can be used, according to Smartmatic.

The system gives real-time feedback in case of over-voting, so the voters may change their ballot before casting the vote. 

It said to comply with the requirements of the Commission on Elections, the machine will print out a receipt which can then be used as a reference in case a manual recount is needed. 

Comelec thought of using touchscreens for the 2016 elections but scrapped the idea because of the cost of implementation.

Smartmatic has provided election technology to the Philippines since 2005 and serviced three national elections.  In 2019, Comelec purchased 97,350 vote-counting machines from Smartmatic.

Aside from the voting machines, Smartmatic delivered 93,826 headphones; 93,826 modems; and hardware for the election management system that supports the operations of the entire automated platform.