Smartmatic bags P243M ballot box deal

Monday, 01 February 2010 05:03 PM Mikhaela De Leon

The Commission on Elections has again awarded poll machine supplier Smartmatic a multi-million contract for the production of the ballot boxes to be used for the May 2010 elections.

Comelec chairman Jose Melo said the deal amounting to P243,367,740 was awarded to Smartmatic, the consortium that won the automated poll contract, for the production of 77,000 ballot boxes that would fit on the Precinct Count Optical Scanner (PCOS) machines which will electronically canvass the votes.

The multi-million contract is on top of the P7-billion automation contract awarded to Smartmatic last year to provide and operate the 82,200 counting machines to be used in the country's first automated elections in May.

The poll official said that the Comelec did not go through a bidding process and had entrusted the project entirely to Smartmatic.

Melo justified the selection of Smartmatic: “Comelec has the authority under the government procurement code to award the contract to a competent bidder. We also eliminate the possibility of preventing defects in ballot box production if we had to consign the production to another firm.”

Smartmatic Asia Pacific president Cesar Flores said that the ballot boxes, which would be made of polypropylane plastic material, would have opaque walls with translucent windows to ensure that the ballots fall right into the box after they have been scanned. He assured, though, that the shaded names of the candidates would not be visible.

The production of the ballot boxes will begin between March and April. Smartmatic-TIM said that it is now in the process of printing over 50 million scannable ballots.

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