MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) and automation vendor Smartmatic-TIM did a ceremonial turnover Monday morning of the last batch of 13,580 Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines that arrived in the country, completing the required 82,200 machines which will be used in the polls.

The machines arrived last Saturday here in Manila, beating the February 28 deadline for the delivery of all machines as stipulated in the P7.2 billion automation contract

Poll automation steering committee chairman Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said this puts to an end issues regarding Smartmatic's supposed inability to deliver the machines on time.

Delays were incurred in the first batch of PCOS machines that were scheduled to arrive last November and December 2009.

The poll automation contract states 42,000 machines should have been delivered by the end of 2009, but only 7,200 PCOS machines were delivered by end of December.

Smartmatic blamed the delays on a petition for certiorari filed before the Supreme Court by poll automation critic, Concerned Citizen's Movement, which, Smartmatic President for Asia-Pacific Cesar Flores said, put the Comelec at a cautious stance in terms of preparations for the computerized polls and spending.

Of the 82,200 machines, only 76, 340 will be deployed to the clustered precincts; the rest will serve as spare or back-up machines.

All machines will undergo a series of stress, accuracy and acceptability tests at the Cabuyao warehouse in Laguna, which will be certified not only by Comelec and Smartmatic, but also by the Commission on Audit and National Computer Center.

Meanwhile, Larrazabal also announced that each voter will be sent an official sample ballot complete with his or her clustered precinct number, polling center, and instructions in Tagalog on how to vote.