First Automated National election in the country; possible

First Automated National election in the country; possible

By Bobby Benito
January 14, 2010

CLARK, Pampanga – Commission on Election spokesperson James Arthur B. Jimenez said today that the first nationwide elections will push through despite concerns on the delayed delivery of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines by its manufacturer,Smartmatic.

“It is expected that first PCOS delivery is on February 21, 2 010, as of now there are 7,200 and another 3,000 then 8,000 and then by Friday 3,200 and on Saturday, another 8,000. So now we are about 32,000 units of PCOS,” said Jimenez in his talk at the Journalist-CSO Partnership for election reporting monitoring held at Montevista Villa in Clark, Pampanga.

Jimenez said something interesting about the machines still on the way in a ship and that there are still a lot of uncertainties like weather.

Smartmatic’s machines will come from China.

Smartmatic, based in Venezuela, won the P7 billion contracts to provide voting machines and system to consolidate election results.

On the call of several groups for an early election in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), Jimenez said that a bill on that is still pending in Congress.

ARMM is one of the identified 558 “Hot Spots” out of 1,634 Cities and municipalities areas of concerns in the country.