Smartmatic PCOS satisfies Comelec

CABUYAO, Laguna -- Proving the Commission on Elections (Comelec) right in getting its services anew for the May 2013 exercise, Smartmatic International managed Monday to satisfy the visiting poll officials in their warehouse here.

In a press conference, Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said the present status of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines in the 23,000 square meters warehouse has shown that Smartmatic has taken care of them and are confident that they will be able to use them seamlessly next year.

“Based on what we have seen, at least casually, you can see that it was well maintained since 2010… we cannot make any general conclusions just yet but so far mukhang ok naman,” said Brillantes.

He added that their initial inspection has so far made them more convinced that they did the right thing in exercising their “option to purchase” the machines.

“We were so concerned about having a new service provider because the facilities here are already here and intact. Andiyan na pati machines. The worst thing that can happen had we lost in the Supreme Court, ang mangyayari magbi-bidding pa kami para sa new provider and you can just imagine this kind of facility being actually established and erected pa by the new provider. Maybe we are also lucky since the SC understood us,” said Brillantes.

Earlier in the month, the High Court cleared the Comelec in its decision to procure the PCOS machines of Smartmatic, which were also the ones used back in the 2010 presidential polls.

Inside the warehouse, the joint Comelec and Smartmatic personnel have been testing the PCOS machines by batches with the poll body having the last say before they are returned to the storage area.

Among the things they are checking are the power source, ibutton ports, LCDs, compact flash card boards, thermal printers, scanning capacity with ultra violet marks, and the transmission capability testing.

However, Smartmatic admitted that their initial testing of the machines have not been exactly flawless.

This, after they found some 450 PCOS units in need of “maintenance work” after its two years of being inactive since the 2010 polls.

“About 15,000 were already tested and about three percent were quarantined. We are going to check them again,” disclosed Smartmatic Corporation President for Asia-Pacific Cesar Flores.

Among the “defects” they have found include the need to replace the power source, in need of cleaning, and in need of screen calibration.

The Smartmatic official, though, stressed that they welcome the discovery of such “defects” since it is still way ahead of Election Day.

“It’s a good thing because the machines are being tested now and they are going to be tested again when configuration takes place. Actually, we prefer it to happen now. That’s expected in any hardware especially it has not been used for two years,” noted Flores.

Brillantes said the Comelec expects Smartmatic to finish the initial testing of the PCOS machines to them in two to three weeks.

“We are going over each and every machine to ensure na ayos lahat ito bago namin tanggapin,” assured Brillantes. (HDT/Sunnex)