Smartmatic
Encyclopedia
Smartmatic is a multinational company
founded in 2000 that specializes in the design and deployment of complex purpose-specific technology solutions
aimed at helping governments to fulfill their commitments toward their citizens.
It is organized around three business units: Electronic voting systems
, Smart Cities
: including Public Safety
and Public Transportation
Solutions, and Identity management
systems for people registration and authentication for government applications.
Smartmatic has offices in the USA, Brazil
, Venezuela
, Barbados
, Panama
, United Kingdom
, Amsterdam
, Philippines
and Taiwan
.
system that includes hardware (SAES voting machines), election management software, and canvassing software for a central location's servers. It includes several security mechanisms, such as encryption
using a public key infrastructure
(PKI) with 2048-bit digital certificates.
The hardware includes voting machine models with voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), redundant memory, integrated printer, a touch screen supporting multiple-choice election processes, tactile remote control, earphones and sip and puff
device for disabled voters, and an add-on voting pad device for use in complex elections.
The software comprises an Electoral Management System (EMS), which manages the data on candidates, electoral seats and political parties, etc., that define and configure an election. The Election Day Management Platform (EDMP) suite of management tools directs technicians and operators installing and manning the voting centers using voting machines. It monitors in real time the installation the opening, closing and auditing of the polling booths; the transmission of results and the backing up of data during the event.
. Since 2004, its election technology has been used in 22 local and national elections: in Venezuela (9), USA (8), Curaçao
(3) and The Philippines (2). Its mileage includes more than 1.5 billion audited votes, each with a voter-verified printed receipt
, cast using some 133,000 voting machines installed in some 300,000 poll centers.
On August 11, 2008, automated regional elections were held in the Philippines
' Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). In the Maguindanao
province, voters used Smartmatic's electronic voting machines, while voters in the other 5 provinces (Shariff Kabunsuan, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi) used manually marked ballots processed using OMR
technology. The overall reaction of both the public and authorities was positive toward the solution.
USP (from Smartmatic Security Solutions) was installed in more than 500 branches of Santander-Serfin Bank, (Mexico)
. Since 2006, the Office of the Mayor of Metropolitan Caracas in Venezuela began the installation of the integrated public security system that helps authorities to provide immediate responses to citizens whose safety has been jeopardized. In 2011, The District of Cartagena in Colombia selected Smartmatic as a technology provider for the new Financial Administration Service of the Integrated Mass Transit System (Transcaribe) with a Fare collection and fleet control system.
The Smartmatic Identity Management Solution has been deployed in Bolivia
(Biometric Voter Registration for Bolivian National Electoral Court (July 2009 – October 2009) with 5.2 million people registered); Mexico
(Provision of enrollment terminals and software for the National ID Program of the Secretariat of Governance (Dec 2009 – Dec 2012) with 100 million people to be registered); and Zambia
(Provision of enrollment terminals and software for Digital Mobile Voter Registration contracted by The United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) & Electoral Commission of Zambia (February 2010 – October 2010)).
in Venezuela, some controversy was raised about the use of electronic voting (SAES voting machines) in that country. The legal basis for this process of automation is found in Article 33(42) of the LOPE (2002), and in Article 154 of the LOSPP (1988).
After the referendum, segments of the opposition cried fraud
and submitted appeals as well as several technical reports, yet, representatives from internationally election observation agencies attested that elections conducted using SAES were at that time and have been (in the following elections) fair, accurate and complying with accepted timing and reliability criteria. These agencies include the Carter Center, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union (EU)
, one of the leading US companies in the field. Following this acquisition, Carolyn B. Maloney
requested an investigation to determine whether CFIUS processes had been followed to green-light sale of Sequoia to a company "with possible ties to the Venezuelan government".
The investigation was prompted after a March 2006 electoral fiasco in Chicago and Cook County, where a percentage of the machines involved were manufactured by Sequoia, and Sequoia provided technical assistance, some by a number of Venezuelan nationals flown in for the event. According to Sequoia the tabulation problems were due to human error, as a post-election check identified only 3 mechanical problems in 1000 machines checked. Election officials blamed poor training. Some problems with the election were later blamed on a software component, developed in Venezuela, for transmitting the voting results to a central computer. A local alderman said the troubles could be due to an "international conspiracy".
After initially cooperating with the CFIUS investigation in October 2006 in particular to clarify the company's ownership, Smartmatic withdrew in December 2006 and sold Sequoia.
Among other vendors, in the 2nd quarter of 2009 Smartmatic and Sequoia competed against each other for the contract to provide voting machines and services to the 2010 national elections
in the Philippines
, one of the largest contracts ever in the voting technology industry. In the bidding process Sequoia was disqualified early, while Smartmatic was declared the winner.
, ANC
and GMA
. The elected president became the 15th President of the Philippines, succeeding President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
, who was barred from seeking re-election due to term restrictions. The successor of the Vice-President Noli de Castro
is the 15th Vice President of the Philippines. Legislators elected in these 2010 elections joined the senators of the 2007 elections and comprise the 15th Congress of the Philippines. The 2010 election was administered by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in compliance with the Republic Act No. 9369, also known as Amended Computerization Act of 2007. Besides logistical problems, during the last few days prior to the election poll machine & services supplier Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corporation (TIM) found cases of PCOS machine failures. Nonetheless it was decided not to postpone elections since the technical issues were resolved quickly and the solution could be deployed by Election Day. Despite the fact that some provinces reported issues in the election process, these did not surpass the 0.50% of the total number of PCOS machines, and most were replaced on time, as planned for. As a result of the delays, the COMELEC extended voting hours from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and continued through the night transmitting the votes from every precinct scattered across the country.
After the elections closed and transmissions from PCOS machines began arriving en masse and the COMELEC was able to publish the first partial results, many former doubts and concerns vanished, to be replaced by astonishment due to the unprecedented speed of the tally
On June 29, 2010 the Philippine Computer Society (PCS) filed a complaint with the country's Ombudsman against 17 officials of the Commission on Elections and the Smartmatic-TIM Corp. for alleged “incompetence,” graft and unethical conduct.
The suit seemingly had had little or no effect on the positive public perception of the May elections. A survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed that an overwhelming majority (75%) of Filipinos were very satisfied with the conduct of the automated elections. The survey also found that voters regarded the 2010 elections one of the most-credible and transparent in Philippine history.
The project to automate Philippine elections had been met with vociferous opposition from its beginning. Several groups which were benefiting from the traditionally fraudulent conduct of Philippines polls found themselves facing great political and economic loss with the promised transparency and auditability of the automated elections system.
Just a few days before the elections, Philippine Computer Society (PCS) filed an injunction against the automated elections, citing fears that the project could fail. The Supreme Court had junked the petition. In the decision upholding the automation project, The Supreme Court said that the arguments raised by the petitioners were "speculative" as they were merely raising their fears in connection with poll automation. The high tribunal ruled that the contentions could not be argued on the basis of fears.
Foreign embassies were also of the opinion that the automated polls were successful. Ambassador Alistair MacDonald of the EU said that he was "impressed by the manner in which this first nationwide automated election was conducted." The US embassy, for their part, congratulated the Filipino people for holding its first automated polls citing the exercise as “another milestone in the Philippines’ democratic history.”
In 2011, The Carter Center, a global peace and health organization founded by former US President Jimmy Carter, cited Smartmatic and the Comelec for the “relatively high public confidence and trust on the use of optical mark recognition technology.” In a 46-page report on its mission to observe the 2010 Philippine Automated Elections, the Carter Center said that “such a success is a credit to the hard work of COMELEC and Smartmatic as well as the commitment of the people of the Philippines toward increasingly transparent elections.”
Multinational corporation
A multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
founded in 2000 that specializes in the design and deployment of complex purpose-specific technology solutions
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
aimed at helping governments to fulfill their commitments toward their citizens.
It is organized around three business units: Electronic voting systems
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
, Smart Cities
Smart City
Urban performance currently depends not only on the city's endowment of hard infrastructure , but also, and increasingly so, on the availability and quality of knowledge communication and social infrastructure ....
: including Public Safety
Emergency management
Emergency management is the generic name of an interdisciplinary field dealing with the strategic organizational management processes used to protect critical assets of an organization from hazard risks that can cause events like disasters or catastrophes and to ensure the continuance of the...
and Public Transportation
Public transport
Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...
Solutions, and Identity management
Identity management
Identity management is a broad administrative area that deals with identifying individuals in a system and controlling access to the resources in that system by placing restrictions on the established identities of the individuals.Identity management is multidisciplinary and covers many...
systems for people registration and authentication for government applications.
Smartmatic has offices in the USA, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, Barbados
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is in length and as much as in width, amounting to . It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about east of the islands of Saint...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
Elections Solutions
The electoral business unit combines a complex project management methodology with an electronic votingElectronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
system that includes hardware (SAES voting machines), election management software, and canvassing software for a central location's servers. It includes several security mechanisms, such as encryption
Encryption
In cryptography, encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. The result of the process is encrypted information...
using a public key infrastructure
Public key infrastructure
Public Key Infrastructure is a set of hardware, software, people, policies, and procedures needed to create, manage, distribute, use, store, and revoke digital certificates. In cryptography, a PKI is an arrangement that binds public keys with respective user identities by means of a certificate...
(PKI) with 2048-bit digital certificates.
The hardware includes voting machine models with voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), redundant memory, integrated printer, a touch screen supporting multiple-choice election processes, tactile remote control, earphones and sip and puff
Sip-and-puff
Sip-and-Puff or Sip 'n' Puff ' technology is a method used to send signals to a device using air pressure by "sipping" or "puffing" on a straw, tube or "wand." It is primarily used by people who do not have the use of their hands...
device for disabled voters, and an add-on voting pad device for use in complex elections.
The software comprises an Electoral Management System (EMS), which manages the data on candidates, electoral seats and political parties, etc., that define and configure an election. The Election Day Management Platform (EDMP) suite of management tools directs technicians and operators installing and manning the voting centers using voting machines. It monitors in real time the installation the opening, closing and auditing of the polling booths; the transmission of results and the backing up of data during the event.
Solutions for Smart Cities
This unit comprises security applications for government critical mission projects, such as Public Safety Platforms, Public Transport Systems, Emergency Management solutions and Census Projects. The services portfolio includes concept and design, technology development, technology implementation and operation, as well as maintenance and support. Smartmatic’s Unified Security Platform automates the interaction between network devices, operators, end users, and security-specific applications. It is designed to provide an end-to-end solution for emergency response using technology to support the handling of emergency calls and to provide immediate responses. It includes hardware, software and deployment services for solutions aiming to improve citizen's quality of life.Identity management
Smartmatic Identity Management Solutions enables government agencies to manage people's biographic and biometric information securely. Products and services include identity card programs, immigration and border control, welfare and social benefit distribution programs, civil and voter registration. It uses both specialized mobile devices for enrollment of people in field applications and an integrated system for stationary use. It includes ID management software, and a back-office system for data consolidation and safeguard.Major implementations
The company was contracted in 2004 for the automation of electoral processes in VenezuelaElections in Venezuela
||Elections in Venezuela gives information on elections and election results in Venezuela.Venezuela elects on a national level a head of state a president and a unicameral federal legislature. The President of Venezuela is elected for a six-year term by the people, and is eligible for re-election...
. Since 2004, its election technology has been used in 22 local and national elections: in Venezuela (9), USA (8), Curaçao
Curaçao
Curaçao is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. The Country of Curaçao , which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao , is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands...
(3) and The Philippines (2). Its mileage includes more than 1.5 billion audited votes, each with a voter-verified printed receipt
Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail
Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail or Verified Paper Record is intended as an independent verification system for voting machines designed to allow voters to verify that their vote was cast correctly, to detect possible election fraud or malfunction, and to provide a means to audit the stored...
, cast using some 133,000 voting machines installed in some 300,000 poll centers.
On August 11, 2008, automated regional elections were held in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
' Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). In the Maguindanao
Maguindanao
Maguindanao is a province of the Philippines located in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao . Its capital is Shariff Aguak. It borders Lanao del Sur to the north, Cotabato to the east, and Sultan Kudarat to the south....
province, voters used Smartmatic's electronic voting machines, while voters in the other 5 provinces (Shariff Kabunsuan, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi) used manually marked ballots processed using OMR
Optical mark recognition
Optical Mark Recognition is the process of capturing human-marked data from document forms such as surveys and tests.-OMR background:...
technology. The overall reaction of both the public and authorities was positive toward the solution.
USP (from Smartmatic Security Solutions) was installed in more than 500 branches of Santander-Serfin Bank, (Mexico)
Grupo Santander
The Santander Group is a banking group centered on Banco Santander, S.A., the largest bank in the Eurozone and one of the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalisation. According to Forbes Magazine Global 2000, it is the 13th largest public company in the world...
. Since 2006, the Office of the Mayor of Metropolitan Caracas in Venezuela began the installation of the integrated public security system that helps authorities to provide immediate responses to citizens whose safety has been jeopardized. In 2011, The District of Cartagena in Colombia selected Smartmatic as a technology provider for the new Financial Administration Service of the Integrated Mass Transit System (Transcaribe) with a Fare collection and fleet control system.
The Smartmatic Identity Management Solution has been deployed in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
(Biometric Voter Registration for Bolivian National Electoral Court (July 2009 – October 2009) with 5.2 million people registered); Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
(Provision of enrollment terminals and software for the National ID Program of the Secretariat of Governance (Dec 2009 – Dec 2012) with 100 million people to be registered); and Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
(Provision of enrollment terminals and software for Digital Mobile Voter Registration contracted by The United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
(UNDP) & Electoral Commission of Zambia (February 2010 – October 2010)).
Venezuela 2004 vote
After the presidential recall referendum of 2004Venezuelan recall referendum of 2004
The Venezuelan recall referendum of 15 August 2004 was a referendum to determine whether Hugo Chávez, the current President of Venezuela, should be recalled from office...
in Venezuela, some controversy was raised about the use of electronic voting (SAES voting machines) in that country. The legal basis for this process of automation is found in Article 33(42) of the LOPE (2002), and in Article 154 of the LOSPP (1988).
After the referendum, segments of the opposition cried fraud
Electoral fraud
Electoral fraud is illegal interference with the process of an election. Acts of fraud affect vote counts to bring about an election result, whether by increasing the vote share of the favored candidate, depressing the vote share of the rival candidates or both...
and submitted appeals as well as several technical reports, yet, representatives from internationally election observation agencies attested that elections conducted using SAES were at that time and have been (in the following elections) fair, accurate and complying with accepted timing and reliability criteria. These agencies include the Carter Center, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the European Union (EU)
Acquisition and disposal of Sequoia
In 2005 Smartmatic acquired Sequoia Voting SystemsSequoia Voting Systems
Sequoia Voting Systems was a California-based company that is one of the largest providers of electronic voting systems in the U.S., having offices in Oakland, Denver and New York City. Some of its major competitors were Premier Election Solutions and Election Systems & Software.It was acquired by...
, one of the leading US companies in the field. Following this acquisition, Carolyn B. Maloney
Carolyn B. Maloney
Carolyn Bosher Maloney is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1993. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, popularly known as the "silk stocking district", includes most of Manhattan's East Side; Astoria and Long Island City in Queens; and Roosevelt Island.-Early life,...
requested an investigation to determine whether CFIUS processes had been followed to green-light sale of Sequoia to a company "with possible ties to the Venezuelan government".
The investigation was prompted after a March 2006 electoral fiasco in Chicago and Cook County, where a percentage of the machines involved were manufactured by Sequoia, and Sequoia provided technical assistance, some by a number of Venezuelan nationals flown in for the event. According to Sequoia the tabulation problems were due to human error, as a post-election check identified only 3 mechanical problems in 1000 machines checked. Election officials blamed poor training. Some problems with the election were later blamed on a software component, developed in Venezuela, for transmitting the voting results to a central computer. A local alderman said the troubles could be due to an "international conspiracy".
After initially cooperating with the CFIUS investigation in October 2006 in particular to clarify the company's ownership, Smartmatic withdrew in December 2006 and sold Sequoia.
Among other vendors, in the 2nd quarter of 2009 Smartmatic and Sequoia competed against each other for the contract to provide voting machines and services to the 2010 national elections
Philippine general election, 2010
Elections for all positions in the Philippines above the barangay were held on Monday, May 10, 2010. The elected president will become the 15th President of the Philippines, succeeding President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is barred from seeking re-election due to term restrictions...
in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, one of the largest contracts ever in the voting technology industry. In the bidding process Sequoia was disqualified early, while Smartmatic was declared the winner.
2010 Automated elections in the Philippines
A total of over 76,340 units plus 5,000+ back-up PCOS machines or Precinct-Count Optical Scanners, plus some 1,700 servers were deployed in the country's first nation-wide fully automated elections, from counting of votes to transmission and canvassing of election results. Election Day was Monday, May 10, 2010 with live full coverage from ABS-CBNABS-CBN
ABS–CBN Corporation is a Philippine-based media conglomerate. It is the Philippines' largest media and entertainment conglomerate. The corporation was the merger of Alto Broadcasting System which at that time owned by James Lindenberg and Antonio Quirino, and the Chronicle Broadcasting Network ...
, ANC
ANC
ANC commonly refers to the African National Congress, a revolutionary movement which became the ruling political party in South Africa in the 1994 election.ANC may also refer to:-Organizations:...
and GMA
GMA Network
GMA Network is a major commercial television & radio network in the Philippines. GMA Network is owned by GMA Network, Inc. a publicly listed company...
. The elected president became the 15th President of the Philippines, succeeding President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is a Filipino politician who served as the 14th President of the Philippines from 2001 to 2010, as the 12th Vice President of the Philippines from 1998 to 2001, and is currently a member of the House of Representatives representing the 2nd District of Pampanga...
, who was barred from seeking re-election due to term restrictions. The successor of the Vice-President Noli de Castro
Noli de Castro
Manuel Leuterio de Castro, Jr. , better known as Noli de Castro or "Kabayan" Noli de Castro, was Vice President of the Philippines ....
is the 15th Vice President of the Philippines. Legislators elected in these 2010 elections joined the senators of the 2007 elections and comprise the 15th Congress of the Philippines. The 2010 election was administered by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) in compliance with the Republic Act No. 9369, also known as Amended Computerization Act of 2007. Besides logistical problems, during the last few days prior to the election poll machine & services supplier Smartmatic-Total Information Management Corporation (TIM) found cases of PCOS machine failures. Nonetheless it was decided not to postpone elections since the technical issues were resolved quickly and the solution could be deployed by Election Day. Despite the fact that some provinces reported issues in the election process, these did not surpass the 0.50% of the total number of PCOS machines, and most were replaced on time, as planned for. As a result of the delays, the COMELEC extended voting hours from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. and continued through the night transmitting the votes from every precinct scattered across the country.
After the elections closed and transmissions from PCOS machines began arriving en masse and the COMELEC was able to publish the first partial results, many former doubts and concerns vanished, to be replaced by astonishment due to the unprecedented speed of the tally
On June 29, 2010 the Philippine Computer Society (PCS) filed a complaint with the country's Ombudsman against 17 officials of the Commission on Elections and the Smartmatic-TIM Corp. for alleged “incompetence,” graft and unethical conduct.
The suit seemingly had had little or no effect on the positive public perception of the May elections. A survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) showed that an overwhelming majority (75%) of Filipinos were very satisfied with the conduct of the automated elections. The survey also found that voters regarded the 2010 elections one of the most-credible and transparent in Philippine history.
The project to automate Philippine elections had been met with vociferous opposition from its beginning. Several groups which were benefiting from the traditionally fraudulent conduct of Philippines polls found themselves facing great political and economic loss with the promised transparency and auditability of the automated elections system.
Just a few days before the elections, Philippine Computer Society (PCS) filed an injunction against the automated elections, citing fears that the project could fail. The Supreme Court had junked the petition. In the decision upholding the automation project, The Supreme Court said that the arguments raised by the petitioners were "speculative" as they were merely raising their fears in connection with poll automation. The high tribunal ruled that the contentions could not be argued on the basis of fears.
Foreign embassies were also of the opinion that the automated polls were successful. Ambassador Alistair MacDonald of the EU said that he was "impressed by the manner in which this first nationwide automated election was conducted." The US embassy, for their part, congratulated the Filipino people for holding its first automated polls citing the exercise as “another milestone in the Philippines’ democratic history.”
In 2011, The Carter Center, a global peace and health organization founded by former US President Jimmy Carter, cited Smartmatic and the Comelec for the “relatively high public confidence and trust on the use of optical mark recognition technology.” In a 46-page report on its mission to observe the 2010 Philippine Automated Elections, the Carter Center said that “such a success is a credit to the hard work of COMELEC and Smartmatic as well as the commitment of the people of the Philippines toward increasingly transparent elections.”
See also
- Civil registration
- BiometricsBiometricsBiometrics As Jain & Ross point out, "the term biometric authentication is perhaps more appropriate than biometrics since the latter has been historically used in the field of statistics to refer to the analysis of biological data [36]" . consists of methods...
- Electronic VotingElectronic votingElectronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
- DRE voting machineDRE voting machineA direct-recording electronic voting machine records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter ; that processes data by means of a computer program; and that records voting data and ballot images in memory components...
- Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004
- Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao general election, 2008Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao general election, 2008Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao general elections was held in the ARMM for the regional governor, vice-governor posts and election of members of the ARMM Regional Legislative Assembly on August 11, 2008. The electronic voting used is the first in Philippines election history...
- Philippine general election, 2010Philippine general election, 2010Elections for all positions in the Philippines above the barangay were held on Monday, May 10, 2010. The elected president will become the 15th President of the Philippines, succeeding President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is barred from seeking re-election due to term restrictions...