New voting machines for ’25 polls in PH by end November – Comelec

BIÑAN, LAGUNA – ELECTIONS chairman George Garcia yesterday said all the 110,000 units of the Automated Counting Machines (ACMs) to be used in the May 2025 national, local, and Bangsamoro parliamentary polls are expected to arrive in the Philippines by November.

In a press briefing after inspecting the ongoing Hardware Acceptance Test (HAT) conducted in their warehouse here, Garcia said they expect their service provider, Miru Systems, to complete the delivery of the ACMs ahead of the original schedule.

“We were informed by Miru that by October, they will be finishing the entire 110,000 units. Therefore, by November, they can already complete the delivery of 110,000 ACMs,” said Garcia.

“It was supposed to be December based on the contract. But since they’ll be able to complete the production by October, they will be completing the delivery by November,” he added.

Miru vice president for overseas sales Ken Cho confirmed Garcia’s statement in a separate interview.

“That’s way ahead of our milestone schedule… We are at least a month ahead of schedule,” said Cho.

Miru has shipped 27,500 ACM units to the Philippines from South Korea. The units are now stored in the Comelec warehouse here.

Garcia said at least 30,000 units are expected to arrive each in September and October.

Of the ACM units turned over to the poll body, the poll chief said 856 have undergone and have passed the HAT, which is being done by Miru personnel and approved by Comelec supervisors.

“We inspect every hardware component of the machines. We have to adopt the highest quality standard because we deserve no less. That’s value for money,” said Garcia.

So far, he said only three had malfunctioning components, which required inspection and minor repair, before eventually getting approved.

“But if after repairing it and it still malfunctioned, it has to be replaced. That’s the rule. Even if only one component malfunctioned, the entire machine will be replaced,” said Garcia.

Aside from the ACMs, the Comelec said the 2,000 out of the 7,000 units of transmission devices have also been delivered, with 80 units having passed the HAT.

On the other hand, the 2,200 laptops for the Consolidation and Canvassing