Smartmatic asks comelec anew to disqualify Indra from OMR bidding

Smartmatic PCOS machine (Comrade Mijur / Technically Juris on Blogspot)

MANILA — Smartmatic – Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) anew to disqualify its competitor, Indra Sistemas S.A. in the bidding for the Optical Mark Reading (OMR) machines.

The Venezuela-based firm is questioning the declaration for Indra to participate in the Second Stage of the public bidding, since it failed in three out of every 10 initial technical requirements during the end-to-end demonstration of their proposed system.

“The Smartmatic joint venture Tech Team recorded a total of 121 failures out of a total of 408 minimum requirements. These 121 failures represent 29.66 percent of the total requirements under the ITS,” said the Smartmatic in a protest filed before the Comelec – Bids and Awards Committee (BAC).

The election system service-provider added, “However, Respondent TWG (Technical Working Group) cleared all these failures and reported the same as having been complied.”

The tech team of Smartmatic noted the absences of log file monitoring, backup files generation, non-display of the hash code, incapability to handle large data at similar time, absence of the required software utility, lack of the ballot definition management capability, and failure to show demonstration ballots.

“Respondent Indra was not able to demonstrate the above specifications and yet Respondent TWG rated Respondent Indra as having passed these requirements,” the company added.

Smartmatic admitted that their observation may differ from that of the Comelec-BAC’s TWG, and insisted that Indra is not eligible to bid for failure to meet all the requirements.

“While the failures recorded by Respondent do not match the 121 failures noted by the Smartmatic JV Tech Team, the remarks in the TWG Compliance Checklist prove one incontrovertible fact, i.e., that Respondent Indra failed to demonstrate all the technical requirements of this Honorable Commission,” Smartmatic added.

It would be recalled that the Comelec – BAC unanimously declared Spain-based company as eligible in the First Stage of the Bidding based on its Eligibility Documents and the Initial Technical Proposals.

On the other hand, Smartmatic-TIM was declared eligible via a majority vote of 3-2 from the Comelec-BAC.

Both firms are bidding for the lease of voting units in addition to the old Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines for the 2016 elections.