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MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Election (Comelec) discarded 1,000 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines out of the more than 80,000 acquired from Smartmatic International.
Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes said that they decided to junk the machines because they were no longer functioning.
Brillantes said they were not worried about it since they had reserved PCOS, referring to the 900 machines they earlier purchased which were used in the special elections.
“We don’t see this as a problem because we have backup PCOS machines,” he said.
He said that Smartmatic had an ample time to manufacture the said number of machines just in case they needed them immediately.
Meanwhile, Brillantes said that they already accepted 50,000 out of the 80,000 PCOS machines from the service-provider.
“We’ve quarantined 30,000. We are ready to pay already the first 30 percent. In fact, Smartmatic is already asking for the second payment but we will issue the first payment first…we are just getting the final acceptance report of our Information Technology Department (ITD),” Brillantes said.
The machines were quarantined since many of them have a problem with their adaptors.
“The adaptors were dirty. You see we are very strict in the acceptance that’s why we are putting them aside,” he said.
Last month, the Comelec and Smartmatic conducted the initial testing of the PCOS machines in Cabuyao, Lagua. This is after the Supreme Court lifted the temporary restraining order on the purchase of the machines. – PNA
More in Rappler’s Elections 2013 Coverage:
- Why Aquino, Villar need each other
- 900 ARMM poll hotspots to be monitored during voters registration
- LP+NP+NPC = PNoy’s politics of addition?
- LP reviewing list of 16 senatorial hopefuls
- Comelec creates new unit to monitor campaign finances
- Comelec accredits UNA as official coalition
- UNA vs LP: What’s the difference?
- Binay and the politics of firsts
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