Advisory council will estimate 2010 poll automation budget - Melo

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has tasked the Advisory Council on Poll Automation to recommend the budget needed to automate the 2010 general elections.

Comelec chairman Jose Melo said the Council would soon meet with officials of the Smartmatic-Sahi Technology and Avante International Technology Inc. to determine the cost of automating the 2010 polls.

“We don’t want to do it ourselves. I don’t think it’s proper for us to negotiate and, in the first place, it’s the advisory council that has the technical expertise to decide,” Melo said.

Smartmatic-Sahi and Avante have supplied the direct recording electronics (DRE) and the optical mark reader (OMR) machines used in last month’s elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Melo, however, clarified that it remains uncertain if the two firms would supply the counting machines for the 2010 elections. 

He said the Comelec would have to conduct a new bidding.

Senators Richard Gordon and Edgardo Angara urged the Comelec to review and resubmit its proposed budget for 2009 to ensure the poll automation in 2010.

Comelec requested Congress for a P3.9-billion outlay without including the budget needed for the automation of the 2010 polls.

Melo admitted the budgetary request for 2009 might not be enough to implement full automation.

Gordon urged Comelec to submit their budget proposal earlier to start preparations for the automation of 2010 elections.

“It will take strong political will on the part of Malacañang and Congress to provide adequate funding for the full automation of the 2010 elections,” Gordon said.

While admitting they would prefer implementing a combination of the two technologies in 2010, Melo said it would be “more practical” to apply OMR than DRE.

With the DRE technology, voters cast their votes by merely pressing the touch screen containing the names and photographs of candidates. Their votes are counted and canvassed automatically.

But with OMR, voters are made to manually stencil the ovals corresponding to their candidates. Their votes will then be counted and canvassed by the machines. –With Nestor Etolle