Smartmatic offers ‘smart’ balloting system for 2010 national elections

The success of fully automated elections in 2010 may start a “chain reaction” in Asia, as close neighbors may want to emulate the Philippines in this aspect, said an official of a leading election technology company.

In a briefing last week, Smartmatic Corp. sales director Cesar Flores further added that despite the current economic environment, governments in the region will still consider spending on poll automation technology despite budget constraints.

Poll automation is often cited as a way for the country to have a faster and more credible election process.

“Right now, we are very focused in the Philippines. But we will use this [country] as a breach to go into other countries in Asia. We believe that if we’re successful here, it will create a chain reaction,” he said during the sidelines of the briefing.

“The will [to automate in the region] is above the constraints,” he said, noting that “credible” elections can translate to investment opportunities for the country.

The company’s first foray in the country—and the Southeast Asian region—was during the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) elections conducted in August 2008.

Flores noted that their experience in handling the ARMM elections gave the company some preparation in handling a major Philippine election.

“ARMM allowed us to have a better understanding of the Philippines than we had before, so this creates a very unique position for us. It would certainly make us very efficient in calculating our costs for 2010,” the company executive said.

For the ARMM elections, the company provided over 3,000 direct recording electronic (DRE) automation devices for the actual voting, as well as for contingency and training purposes. The other system used was the optical mark reader (OMR) provided by a separate group.

The DRE is a touchscreen system where voters input their candidates onto the machine, after which the vote is counted automatically after confirmation. An OMR requires a ballot to be manually filled out by means of shading ovals alongside the corresponding names of the candidates before it is scanned.

A key issue is the safety of poll automation and the company said they addressed this through a receipt printed from each DRE machine. This, according to the company, will help voters verify if their votes were recorded correctly.

For the 2010 elections, Flores said it is very possible for the country to have a fully automated balloting—with the “right mix of technologies.”

But the correct mix of DRE or OMR, he said, will depend on several factors including the country’s geography and population distribution. The DRE machines, for instance, may be better suited for densely populated urban areas, he pointed out.

Robert Cook, Smartmatic’s worldwide sales president, said using several technologies may have some extra cost for a country but he added that integrating these systems “is really not that expensive.”

Flores noted that the country’s Commission on Elections (Comelec) will ultimately decide on which system or combination of technologies will be used.

“That will depend on [the Comelec’s] budget,” he said. For the ARMM election, the government spent some P188 million for Smartmatic’s DRE equipment, as well as logistics and training.

The amount, if it will be ratified by Congress, is the P11.3 billion supplemental budget for the 2010 elections’ poll automation. Flores said this amount, with the proper mix of technologies, should be sufficient to ensure full poll automation in the coming elections

Cook, however, noted that budget issues need to be decided by the first half of the year. “If [budget deliberations on the automated elections] go beyond May or June, then there will be an issue [on fully automating the 2010 elections],” he said.