After President Rodrigo Duterte's order, the search for the replacement of poll technology provider Smartmatic is now in the hands of the Department of Information and Communications Technology , Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr. said on Tuesday.
Rio said DICT will make the recommendations to the Commission on Elections , which is an independent body. He said the options will be presented to the poll body as early as end of June. Comelec Chair Sheriff Abas confirmed they have started to meet with DICT regarding Duterte's directive. Smartmatic and COMELEC have been in hot water for snags during the 2019 midterm polls, including a seven-hour delay in the release of election results from the transparency server and glitches in secure digital cards used to store encrypted images of the ballots. This led to questions regarding the election results' integrity.
No more Latiñas in ACCRA?