MANILA, Philippines – Despite failing to transmit 23% of election results in 2013, Venezuelan firm Smartmatic won a P500-million ($10.61-million) deal to provide the same services in the presidential elections in 2016.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesman James Jimenez on Thursday, November 26, said Smartmatic bagged a P507-million (P10.76-million) contract to transmit election results for the May 2016 polls.

Smartmatic reportedly submitted the “lowest calculated responsive bid.”

“We don’t have any preference for any provider, and we have to make the decision based on those who joined the bid,” Comelec Commissioner Christian Lim explained, as quoted by ABS-CBN News. 

Smartmatic provided the same services in the Philippines’ first two automated elections, in 2010 and 2013.

In 2013, Smartmatic failed to transmit around 23% of election results from vote-counting machines.

Senator Aquilino Pimentel III earlier said he was dismayed at the transmission rate in 2013.

Given failures like this, critics have then urged the Comelec to blacklist Smartmatic from providing election-related services. They claim that Smartmatic’s PCOS machines can be easily rigged. (READ: Poll watchdog pushes for ‘laptop count’ to replace PCOS)

Still, Smartmatic won another major deal that allows it to lease 93,000 vote-counting machines to the Comelec for May 2016. – Rappler.com

*$1 = P47.09