Comelec upbeat after first voting machines arrive

(Updated 2 - 10:41 PM) More than 7,000 Chinese-made voting machines were received by the Philippines’ poll body early this week in a move that will try to beat the government’s deadline for automated elections. Although the batch of equipment is just a fraction of the 82,200 voting machines required to be delivered on February 28, 2010, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) nevertheless remained optimistic about next year’s poll automation. “It’s all systems go for the automation," Comelec Chairman Jose Melo told reporters after showing the five cargo trucks carrying the first shipment of 4,000 poll machines that arrived Monday night from Suzhou, China. “The balance of the machines will all be finished, manufactured, and ready for shipment by February. Our level of confidence has gone up," Melo said during a briefing held at the Comelec office on Wednesday. The next batch of poll machines is set to arrive on January 3, he added. A separate shipment of 3,200 units arrived in Manila on Tuesday and is waiting to be released by the Bureau of Customs (BOC). Like the earlier shipment, the new batch will also be transported to the same warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna where all the equipment will undergo testing. Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines to be used for the 2010 elections are the same kind used in elections in other countries, specifically in Canada and the United States, Smartmatic spokesman Gene Gregorio told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. On Wednesday, officials of both the Comelec and Smartmatic-TIM – the company that produced the poll machines – inspected the first batch of the 4,000 poll machines that were delivered from Suzhou, China. Taken together, the 7,200 units represent less than ten percent of the total 82,200 poll machines to be delivered by Smartmatic-TIM. The joint venture promised to deliver the remaining 75,000 units by February 21, a week before its February 28 deadline indicated in a contract with the Comelec. The company will be forced to pay a P7.5 million fine for every single day it misses the deadline, Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal told GMANews.TV in a separate phone interview. Poll machines to undergo lab, field tests Starting next week, Smartmatic-TIM will be delivering an average of 9,600 PCOS units every week until February, Chairman Juan Villa said during the same Comelec briefing. The move will allow the company to deliver all 82,200 machines a week ahead of schedule, Villa said. "What we have is a world-class facility, so we won't have any problems with production," he added. The machines will undergo laboratory tests, field tests, and even mock elections, Larrazabal said during the interview with GMANews.TV. “All the machines to be used for elections will be tested in the polling place in the actual conditions by the board of election inspector (BEI) to be witnessed by the public," Larrazabal said during the briefing on Wednesday. After these tests, the machines will be sent to the 40 regional hubs chosen by Smartmatic before April 25. The machines “will be sent out to regional hubs so that these will be nearer to the precincts…in case anything happens, not all the machines will be affected," he said. Three days before the elections, the Comelec will also seal and test poll equipment to assure voters that all 82,200 machines are in working order. By January 10, the Comelec will test the software inside the poll machine, Larrazabal said. Field tests and mock elections are also expected to undertaken before the end of January, Larrazabal told GMANews.TV. “We are going to test the different aspects of the PCOS," he said, pointing out that machines’ testing schedules may vary depending on their arrival. All machine tests are expected to be finished by April 25, the date when the PCOS units will begin to be deployed to different parts of the country. If a machine fails, Smartmatic is expected to either immediately repair or replace the defective unit without using a spare PCOS, Larrazabal said, citing a clause in the contract. Seven thousand of the 82,200 units are expected to be used as “spares" during election day. If a machine passes all tests, a 99.99 percent accuracy in its functions is guaranteed, Larrazabal said. Authorities give assurance of poll machines’ security Melo also assured the public that authorities and concerned parties will be involved in securing the PCOS machines until election day. “It will be guarded by policemen, soldiers, and even people from the political parties and candidates," he said during the Comelec briefing on Wednesday. “They can watch day and night until election day." The Comelec chairman also ruled out any more problems “as far as the machines are concerned," Melo added. “We will have the required number of PCOS machines." In the meantime, Larrazabal said that the Comelec has already trained 400 personnel who will be tasked to train the BEIs for next year’s polls. “We’ve already informed the Department of Education (DepEd) about it," he said, adding that while some concerns have been aired, there is still sufficient time to address them. Rough road to poll automation The Philippines’ path to poll automation has been anything but smooth, forcing the Comelec to adjust timetables more than once. In its original proposal, polling equipment was supposed to be delivered on October 1, 2009. The target delivery was later moved to November 26. However, the Comelec posted a different time line on its Web site. Instead of November 1, 2009, the Comelec expected polling machines to be fully delivered by December 31, 2009. By December 17, the poll body extended the deadline to February 22, 2010. According to the new Comelec schedule, 7,200 machines are expected to be delivered by December 27, 2009; 9,000 by January 3, 2010; and 10,600 machines by January 10, 2010. Budget delays, questions arising from the poll machine contract, and the holidays – which increased delivery costs – caused a delay in the delivery of some 12,000 poll machines. Moreover, the commission has yet to train the 50,000 technical support representatives who are needed to maintain and operate the machines during the elections. Similarly, public school teachers – who assist voters at the precinct level – also need to be trained regarding the Philippines’ first automated elections. This has prompted House Speaker Prospero Nograles to say that the commission should consider House Bill 6054 of Deputy Speaker Pabling Garcia. The bill mandates manual voting, counting, and canvassing of votes. Only vote transmission will be done electronically. - with Carmela Lapeña, RJAB, Jr., HGS/ GMANews.TV