Smartmatic eyes manual recount to clear name

Seeking to clear its name from accusations of poll fraud, Smartmatic on Monday requested the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to conduct a manual recount of the ballots from the recently concluded automated elections. “There have been many accusations with no proof. To all these accusations, my best answer is even if you don't believe in the [automated] system, you can believe in a recount," said Smartmatic-Asia Pacific president Cesar Flores after attending an investigation at the House of Representatives on the alleged irregularities in the May 10 polls. “The best way to solve this is by opening the ballot boxes. My request to Comelec and the whole country, if you don’t believe the system, [is to] do a [manual] count," he added. Flores expressed certainty that manual counting would produce the same results as those churned up by the counting machines.

CF cards During the hearing of the House committee on electoral reforms and suffrage, Flores reiterated that Compact Flash cards could not be re-programmed as alleged by some losing candidates. He said multiple inscriptions secured the integrity of the thousands of CF cards bought for the May 10 polls. It was the same set of CF cards that malfunctioned during Comelec's testing of the election machines last May 3, wherein results of ERs from the machines did not match those from a manual count. The glitch-riddled testing prompted the Comelec and Smartmatic to recall 76,000 cards and replace them with reconfigured ones. Flores said after learning about the glitch a week before the May 10 polls, they immediately placed purchase orders for new cards from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Between May 5 and 8, around 63,000 new CF cards were imported to the Philippines and reconfigured in Smartmatic's warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna. Stupid to cheat While the 75,000 defective cards were being transported back to Smartmatic's hands, the firm had already begun the reconfiguration of around 18,000 other cards in their warehouse “just in case the defective cards do not arrive in time." “You cannot cheat and not leave a trail. It's stupid to cheat because you will be caught," Flores assured. He added that Smartmatic remains "innocent" on all allegations so far hurled against them, saying their personnel would never conspire with people who had planned to rig the polls as their critics alleged. No different Flores admitted that the controversies in Philippine elections were not so different compared to other countries whose elections they had also automated. “Every country we go, we see the same behavior. It's hard for people to accept their loss. But aside from words [about irregularities], there should be proof," he said. He said he would surrender his passport to authorities so long as a legal case would be filed in the proper courts and if the court would order him to do so. - KBK/RSJ, GMANews.TV