The joint venture led by Smartmatic-Total Information Management (TIM) Corporation was the only bidder that passed the first stage of the bidding for the lease of touchscreen voting machines for the 2016 national elections. On Tuesday, December 16, the bids and awards committee (BAC) of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) voted 3-2 to declare the Smartmatic-TIM joint venture eligible to proceed to the second stage of the bidding process. Bids committee chairperson Helen Aguila-Flores, vice chairperson Jubil Surmeida, and member Divina Blas-Perez voted for Smartmatic-TIM’s eligibility, while members Charlie Yap and Maria Juana Valeza deemed Smartmatic-TIM as ineligible.
The Smartmatic joint venture is composed of Smartmatic-TIM Corporation, Jarltech International Inc, TIM Corporation, and Smartmatic International Holdings BV.
The other bidder, the Scytl-Vibal Group joint venture, was unanimously declared ineligible by the Comelec BAC, due to deficiencies in its eligibility documents and initial technical proposal, as discovered by the bid committee’s technical working group (TWG).
Full Article: Smartmatic lone eligible bidder for touchscreen voting system.