Late CF card delivery won't imperil elections, Smartmatic says

The late delivery of compact flash (CF) cards in several areas in the country — including volatile provinces such as Maguindanao and Sulu — would not imperil the conduct of elections in May 10, poll machine supplier Smartmatic said on Friday. “We can make it. We have always said that we can make it, despite the new change in the schedule," Smartmatic Asia president Cesar Flores said in an interview on Friday. Almost all ballots and precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines are already in place in town halls all over the country, while most reconfigured compact flash (CF) cards will arrive by Saturday, he said. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) pulled out and reconfigured all CF cards containing instructions to the PCOS machines after the automated counting machines failed to read votes accurately when tested last Monday. Flores added that Smartmatic and Comelec are closely coordinating with the police to ensure that CF cards will arrive in time for the May 10 polls, especially in areas prone to election-related violence. “We are trying to work with the police to make sure that the CF cards will arrive in these areas on time," he said. The Comelec said on Thursday that vote-counting in five percent of all polling areas in the country might be delayed for a day because of late deliveries of reconfigured CF cards. Transparency Flores also assured voters that Smartmatic will be fully transparent about their operations on May 10, a day after the Supreme Court ordered the Comelec to disclose all preparations for the elections. “Everything has always been transparent, and will continue to be transparent. Everything has always been public," he said. Flores even toured representatives from the media on Friday inside the Smartmatic national support center facility located in the Antel Global Corp. Center in Pasig City. The support center will receive reports on technical problems from Smartmatic’s 42,000 technicians on the field, Flores said. He added that Smartmatic will give real-time updates on the status of different poll activities, such as the opening and closing of polling precincts, in the Comelec center in the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City on election day. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV