To address the accusations made by former Department of Information and Communications Technology Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio, Jr., the Commission on Elections has authorized a recount of select ballots either physical ballots or ballot images.

"This is consistent with the Commission En Banc's commitment to uphold fair, orderly, and honest elections and to pursue all avenues to strengthen transparency in the conduct of elections," the resolution said.

The petitioners will not be charged for any ballot recount that occurs in every region.

The decision was part of a resolution in which the poll body perpetually disqualified Smartmatic, citing the case of the US government against former Comelec chair Juan Andres Bautista, who was accused of receiving bribes in "exchange for awarding a contract for election machines to Smartmatic Corp."

Rio and his colleagues filed a petition before the Comelec claiming that the 2022 polls have irregularities.

The Comelec, however, said the claims of Rio's camp were unfounded.

Rio responded to Comelec saying that the agency's move is still lacking.

"In fairness to Comelec, we applaud their decision to permanently disqualify Smartmatic. But what they are basing it on is a long-standing election issue, as far back as 2016. They didn't look at the irregularities of the 2022 elections on 9 May. So, for us, what Comelec did was not enough," Rio said.