Comelec to assess Smartmatic performance, probe VCMs malfunction during polls

COMELEC En Banc convenes. pic.twitter.com/tKrtXZ7ngD

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MANILA – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) asserted that it will assess the performance of its service provider, Smartmatic International particularly over the 2,300 machines that malfunctioned in Monday’s polls.

Comelec Commissioner Luie Guia said they will study the possibility of holding the international company accountable on the machines that failed to function on Election Day.

“Of course, we will look into them and we would have to relate it to the issue of liability or accountability as provide by the Terms of Reference. That is in the contract,” he said.

Guia added that they will include in the assessment are the reports from the field regarding the glitches suffered in different polling precincts.

“We don’t want any of these failures so we will really look into these reports,” the poll body official said.

Guia noted that among the possible penalties is the withholding of portions of the payment to Smartmatic, amounting to about PHP8 billion.

On Monday, about 2.55 percent of the 92,509 VCMs had malfunctioned, with some 150 units replaced.

In the last elections, 4,760 out of 77,829 Precinct Optical Scan (PCOS) machines malfunctioned, with 171 had to be changed.

A total of 1,966 out of 76,347 PCOS machines had glitches and 205 were replaced, in the 2010.