Tech firm defends voting machines

Tech firm defends voting machines

THE SOUTH Korean technology firm that will supply election equipment for the 2025 national and local elections in the Philippines belied claims that its vote counting machines had been exposed for defects and electoral fraud in previous elections.

Facing Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Miru Systems Company, Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Chung Gin Bok said through interpreter Lee SL Kee Chan that his company’s vote counting machines did not malfunction during the 2018 Iraq elections.

“There were no defects or problems with the machines that were placed there (Iraq), or [with] any accounting or tallying results,” he said, adding that it was “the incumbent [who] was insistent with the manual recount.”

It was a response to Senator Ana Theresia N. Hontiveros-Baraquel, who raised concerns about Miru Systems’ performance as the election software provider in Iraq’s and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s polls.

In last year’s elections in Congo, Mr. Bok said only a few machines malfunctioned and a few logistics issues occurred.

The company won the P18-billion contract to be the Philippines’ electoral systems provider, the biggest deal ever bid out by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). — John Victor D. Ordoñez