Poll machines to be delivered by end-February, Smartmatic says

Smartmatic-TIM, the company supplying poll machines for the May elections, said it will be able to meet its delivery deadlines before the end of the month. All 82,200 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines will be delivered before the deadline, Smartmatic spokesman Gene Gregorio told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. “[The last batch] of PCOS for the clustered precincts [would be delivered] within the deadline," Gregorio said. Earlier, Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo said that Smartmatic is expected to deliver all the poll machines before February 28. But the supplier promised that it would be able to deliver the machines a week earlier on February 21. Of the 82,200 PCOS machines that Smartmatic has committed to provide the poll body, 48,900 are already in their warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna; 8,000 are just awaiting release from the Bureau of Customs; 18,920 are currently en route to the country; and 6,380 are awaiting shipping advice, Gregorio said. But he was quick to note that the 6,380 undelivered machines are only "additional spare" units. Only about 76,000 of the 82,200 purchased poll machines will be used in the May polls because each clustered precinct will need only one unit. As of January 15, there are already a total number of 50,723,734 registered voters, 37,422 voting centers, and 76,340 clustered precincts. However, the spokesman said he could not give an exact date of the machines' arrival because shipping companies are just giving them estimates regarding dates of their arrival. But he quickly noted that the spare machines will definitely be delivered before the end of the month. Smartmatic-TIM initially promised to deliver 42,200 PCOS units by the end of November last year. However, the scheduled delivery was moved to December. At the end of the year, only 7,200 units were delivered due to costly shipping and traffic problems during the holiday season, according to the Comelec. [See: Costlier shipping delayed poll machine delivery - Comelec] Comelec chairman Jose Melo said Smartmatic-TIM has since committed to deliver about 9,600 machines weekly. Smartmatic-TIM will be forced to pay a P7.5-million fine for every single day it misses the deadline, said Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV