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

Smartmatic, in a statement issued on Saturday, insisted that the petitioners "lacked evidence" and that the charges against it were "unfounded."

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

On 15 June, former Department of Information and Communications Technology chief Eliseo Rio Jr., Augusto Lagman, Franklin Ysaac and Leonardo Odono filed a petition to bar Smartmatic from participating in biddings for new contracts.

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 returns" during the 2022 national elections.

"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," Smartmatic said.

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

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

Resolution expected soon

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

"We promise you that whatever our decision, it 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 conducts," Garcia said.

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

The Special Bids and Awards Committee decided to allow ample time for all possible suppliers to prepare their documents to be submitted to the poll body.

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