What is Smartmatic’s role in Philippine elections?
From 2010 through 2022, Smartmatic served as a technology provider for Philippine national elections, beginning with the country's first fully automated general election. That election involved 50 million voters and published official results within two hours, a milestone that helped establish automated elections as a permanent feature of Philippine democracy.
Throughout that period, Smartmatic provided optical scan technology, ballot design, voter management systems, and end-to-end election management services. The Philippines remains one of the largest and most complex election deployments in the world, and Smartmatic's work there has been recognized as a model for large-scale election automation.
When did the Philippines hold its first automated election?
The Philippines held its first fully automated national election on May 10, 2010. Smartmatic won the competitive and international bid to run the project in 2008 and spent two years building and deploying the system.
The 2010 election was, at the time, the largest fully outsourced automated election in history. Fifty million voters participated, and official results were published within two hours, a dramatic improvement over the manual counting process that had previously taken weeks. The system’s success in delivering fast and accurate results helped establish automated voting as the standard for future Philippine elections.
Public support for the automated system has been consistent and strong. Immediately after the 2010 elections, COMELEC’s credibility and satisfaction rating reached a historic high of 74 percent.
A 2016 Stratbase survey found that 96 percent of voters trusted the election results, 92 percent said the release of results was fast, and 93 percent found the technology easy to use.
A Pulse Asia survey conducted after the 2019 midterms found that 9 out of 10 Filipinos wanted all future elections to be automated, and 89 percent said they trusted the results. Regardless of political affiliation, Filipino voters have consistently expressed confidence in the automated election system Smartmatic helped build.
Is Smartmatic still eligible to operate in the Philippines?
Yes. Smartmatic was initially disqualified by the Philippine Commission on Elections from participating in the 2025 election automation bid. The Philippine Supreme Court subsequently annulled that decision, finding that Comelec had committed grave abuse of discretion. That ruling is legally significant in the Philippines and confirms that Smartmatic remains fully eligible to operate in the country and to compete for future election contracts.
Did Smartmatic employees tamper with election code during the 2016 Philippine elections?
No. In 2016, a Smartmatic technician accessed the Transparency Server during the Philippine general election, under the direct supervision of Commission on Elections personnel, to correct the encoding of the letter “ñ” in candidate names. The Transparency Server is outside the Automated Election System and is used only to display unofficial results for media monitoring. It has no connection to the processes of counting votes or tabulating official results.
A cybercrime complaint arising from the incident was dismissed by the Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila on September 28, 2016, for lack of merit and insufficient evidence.
The incident has since been repeatedly invoked in misinformation and disinformation narratives in both the Philippines and the United States to claim or imply that the 2016 Philippine election results were manipulated. Those claims mischaracterize the function of the Transparency Server, which displayed unofficial results for media organizations and election observers but did not count votes, tabulate official results, or alter election returns. Post-election audits and subsequent electoral protest proceedings did not substantiate allegations that the script change affected the election results.
Did Smartmatic rig the 2016 Philippine elections?
No. The 2016 Philippine general elections were conducted under the authority of Comelec using Smartmatic technology and produced legitimate results. Those results were confirmed through recounts, audits, legal proceedings, and election observation reports, all of which found the outcome to be accurate.