Service provider Smartmatic reiterated its appeal to the Commission on Elections to dismiss the disqualification case filed against it in the bidding process for the 2025 automated elections.

Smartmatic insisted in a statement issued on Saturday that the petitioners "lacked evidence" and that the charges against them are "unfounded."

"The petitioners' clear objective is both political, attempting to delegitimize the government, and commercial, supporting Smartmatic competitors. These claims are unfounded, presented as facts but lacking any evidence," Smartmatic said.

On 15 June, former Department of Information and Communications Technology chief Eliseo Mijares Rio Jr., Augusto Cadelina Lagman, Franklin Fayloga Ysaac and Leonardo Olivera Odono filed a petition against Smartmatic.

According to their allegations, Smartmatic "failed to comply with certain minimum system capabilities that resulted in serious and grave irregularities in the transmission and receipt of election return" during the 2022 national elections.

But, according to Smartmatic, "the petitioners have not demonstrated a single vote discrepancy. The automated system's accuracy has been consistently proven, validated by Comelec's records, Random Manual Audits, and independent audits and recounts by watchdogs like LENTE and PPCRV."

"Comelec has the resources and facts to affirm the election results as voted by the Filipino people… In upholding the integrity of democratic processes, it is imperative for election management bodies to make decisions based only on verifiable facts and tangible evidence," added the service provider.

The Comelec en banc has yet to vote on the petition.

Comelec chairman George Erwin Garcia stated that draft resolutions have already been presented to the members of the en banc. Garcia added that Comelec will issue a resolution before the end of this week.

"We promise to you that whatever our decision is, this will always be for the good of the country, for the good of our election management, and for the purpose of upholding, affirming the integrity of each and every election that the Comelec is conducting," Garcia said.

On Wednesday, Garcia announced that the submission of the bid documents for a new automated election system for the 2025 midterm elections has been moved from 28 November to 12 December.

This was decided by the Special Bids and Awards Committee to allow ample time for all possible suppliers to prepare their documents that will be submitted to the poll body.

On Friday, the Comelec announced that at least five companies are expected to submit their bids for the P18 billion vote counting machine contract.