Smartmatic has acquired satellite antennas for areas that have no stable telecommunication capacity to solve the glitches in machines to be used during the May polls, a company official said. “We already acquired 5,000 satellite antennas,” said Smartmatic International Sales Director Cesar Flores during the ABS-CBN News Channel's (ANC's) E-Leksyon Forum Friday at ABS-CBN's Dolphy Theater. Smartmatic is the Venezuelan company that won the bid for the country's first nationwide automated elections. It is supplying Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that will automatically count the votes cast. Lack of a telecommunications signal or GSM signal, would hinder the electronic transmission of results from the precincts to the municipal, provincial, and national canvassing as what happened during a test run Friday in Taguig and Pateros. “What happened to Taguig and Pateros is just that,” Flores said, referring to the field tests done Friday, which had problems transmitting the results. Flores said the field tests are being done to anticipate problems that must be addressed. He also said transmission problems had been expected. “There will be issues. It is naïve to think that nothing will happen. The important thing is that we must know what to do,” he said. He said Smartmatic bought satellite antennas to remedy the transmission glitches. “If you cannot resort to GSM transmission, then you need satellite transmission, or resort to a contingency transmission,” Flores said. He did not elaborate on the contingency transmission. Based on Smartmatic's site surveys of network availabilities in the various precincts nationwide, only 65% of the total number of polling centers have stable telecommunication capacity. There will be 76,000 clustered precincts or polling centers in the country for the May 10 polls. The remaining 35%, or around 24,000 clustered precincts, will need satellite antennas for secure electronic transmission of the results. Flores said they are still looking into which precincts need the satellite antennas, and how the precincts can share the antennas. Because of the results of their site surveys, Flores said that they were not expecting that 90-95% of the transmission, during the 2 field tests, would go smoothly. The areas where the tests failed would have to resort to electronic transmission using satellite antennas. Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said mock elections will be done on Feb. 6 to test whether the machines can withstand extreme conditions. He said the testing and sealing of the machines will also be done three to seven days before the elections in the designated polling center of the machine. Flores said the machines they have manufactured have undergone “very strict testing.” He said they have conducted elections in other countries that have more extreme weather conditions, such as in the very hot Amazon jungle, and in mountains with very low temperatures. The PCOS machines that Smartmatic manufactured were left for 24 hours in a place with 95% humidity, Flores added. Antonio Tinio, chairperson of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, pointed out that during field tests, there will be no transmission testing. His worry is that although the machine might work during the tests, transmission will not. Both Comelec and Smartmatic did not have an answer for this in the forum. – ABS
