KONTRA Daya has raised the alarm on the credentials of South Korean company Miru Systems, the sole bidder for the 2025 Philippine automated election system (AES).
This comes after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) marked the firm’s bid as eligible during the second round of auction for the AES last January 9.
“The track record of Miru does not make us confident that they will be able to deliver transparent and clean elections,” said Maded Batara III, spokesman for Kontra Daya. “Many international NGOs [nongovernment organizations] and IT [information technology] experts have already rejected Miru in the past few years for grave lapses in electoral transparency and security.”
The company has had contracts with governments in Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan, among others, for their own poll systems.
Machine failures and cheating allegations were reported in the first two countries where Miru equipment was used. Due to this, the Iraqi judiciary has demanded a full manual recount and the stoppage of electronic voting.
In 2017, the government of Argentina rejected the use of Miru’s voting machines in elections, citing concerns from local security researchers that the equipment can be easily controlled to rig vote counts.
“Argentinian IT experts have stated that Miru’s machines can easily be manipulated to change the count or identify a voter based on their ballot using simple tools,” said Kim Cantillas, current chairperson of the Computer Professionals’ Union.
The firm has, likewise, undergone various criminal investigations in its home country due to corruption, bribery and embezzlement allegations.
Miru’s bid for the poll systems in the Philippines engages a triumvirate of homegrown companies, including the Integrated Computer Systems Inc. (ICS) led by George Barcelon, former Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry president and appointee to the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. “A company with a history of corruption scandals directly collaborating with a local company led by an administration appointee should be a cause for alarm,” the Kontra Daya spokesman said. “Allowing this level of blatant interference with the voting process would be a death sentence for Philippine democracy.”
Kontra Daya underscored its commitment to keep on pushing for a more transparent hybrid election system developed by local information and communications technology players.
“Ensuring the participation of the people in the counting of votes would go a long way in ensuring that those who attempt to cheat the election cannot hide,” Batara said.
The national alliance of electoral watchdogs also called on the Comelec to continue to hold Smartmatic, the previous electronic election provider, for its unanswered cases of bribery and poll fraud.