Smartmatic explains bloated number of voters to lawmakers
The company that supplied the counting machines used in the May 10 automated elections on Wednesday blamed a "program error" for the overblown figure of registered voters —almost 257 million — that was transmitted to the Senate. On the second day of the joint congressional canvassing, Smartmatic-Asia Pacific president Cesar Flores, who was invited as a guest speaker, said the error caused the figures for the number of registered voters to add up as they are transmitted from the municipal to national level. "There was an error in the application that it was adding the number of registered voters at the precinct level. Then it was adding the votes on the municipal level. And then the ones in the province, the ones in the central server, therefore multiplying the number of registered voters," he said. Flores said this resulted to the bloated number of total registered voters or five times more than the actual number. He said the firm's personnel later corrected the program to adjust the figures back to around 50 million registered voters. House Speaker Prospero Nograles raised concerns about Smartmatic technicians accessing the program and making changes to it. "This reveals that machines are being touched when they are not supposed to be touched," he said. Flores apologized for the error but assured that the error did not affect the calculation of votes reflected in the certificates of canvass (COCs) for all positions. "The only implication of this [error] is that it will affect only the results of the voter turnout," Flores said. For his part, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel called the program error as "horrendous," saying it would have resulted in graver implications had Congress not discovered it. - Mark D. Merueñas/KBK, GMANews.TV