The late delivery of compact flash (CF) cards in several areas in the
country — including volatile provinces such as Maguindanao and Sulu —
would not imperil the conduct of elections in May 10, poll machine
supplier Smartmatic said on Friday.
“We can make it. We have always said that we can make it, despite the
new change in the schedule," Smartmatic Asia president Cesar Flores said
in an interview on Friday.
Almost all ballots and precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines are
already in place in town halls all over the country, while most
reconfigured compact flash (CF) cards will arrive by Saturday, he said.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) pulled out and reconfigured all CF
cards containing instructions to the PCOS machines after the automated
counting machines failed to read votes accurately when tested last Monday.
Flores added that Smartmatic and Comelec are closely coordinating with
the police to ensure that CF cards will arrive in time for the May 10
polls, especially in areas prone to election-related violence.
“We are trying to work with the police to make sure that the CF cards
will arrive in these areas on time," he said.
The Comelec said on Thursday that vote-counting in five percent of all
polling areas in the country might be delayed for a day because of late deliveries of reconfigured CF cards.
Transparency
Flores also assured voters that Smartmatic will be fully transparent
about their operations on May 10, a day after the Supreme Court ordered
the Comelec to disclose all preparations for the elections.
“Everything has always been transparent, and will continue to be
transparent. Everything has always been public," he said.
Flores even toured representatives from the media on Friday inside the
Smartmatic national support center facility located in the Antel Global
Corp. Center in Pasig City.
The support center will receive reports on technical problems from
Smartmatic’s 42,000 technicians on the field, Flores said.
He added that Smartmatic will give real-time updates on the status of
different poll activities, such as the opening and closing of polling
precincts, in the Comelec center in the Philippine International
Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City on election day.
David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer
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