Philippines bids farewell to democracy

Smartmatic briefly owned Sequoia, and then sold it. The two were recently competing fiercely for this contract with the Philippines.

So Smartmatic won; and the people of the Philippines are going to lose.

MCM

Philippines salvages deal to automate 2010 elections

MANILA (AFP) – A 150 million-dollar project to automate next year’s Philippine elections is back on track just days after the winning bidders threatened to walk out on the deal, officials said Friday.

Barbados-based Smartmatic Corp. said the firm and its local partners are to to sign the deal with the government’s Commission on Elections (Comelec) next week, in time to put the system in place before the country elects a successor to President Gloria Arroyo on May 10.

The consortium will provide 82,000 computerised counting machines across the southeast Asian archipelago to speed up voting to two days instead of several weeks under the current manual system.

The Arroyo government welcomed the announcement.

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Originally posted: Philippines bids farewell to democracy

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