Midterm poll audit: Comelec reports ‘99.9997%’ accuracy

Commission on Elections. — File photo

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday said the ongoing random manual audit (RMA) of the results of the May 12 midterm polls from 723 of the 763 selected election precincts had logged a “99.997 percent” accuracy rate.

In a press conference following an inspection of the RMA venue in a Pasay City hotel, Comelec Chair George Erwin Garcia said the Comelec-led RMA committee and teams were expected finish checking the remaining ballot boxes by Friday.

The final and official RMA data and statistics should be out by Monday, Garcia added.

The Comelec chief said “a few” of the discrepancies, as reported to him by the committee, stemmed from missing ballots, excess ballots and wrong precinct results sent.

“But that does not affect the entirety of our [election] results. What we’re saying is that there won’t be a 100-percent result. If there is, we should doubt it. The ‘point something’ [rates] are something that we see in all elections,” he said.

READ: Result of Comelec audit is ‘best basis’ for poll protest-expert

No big discrepancy

“What’s important is that there is no such big discrepancy like what is being mentioned by those filing election protests or those who refuse to accept the results of our elections,” he added.

Garcia’s inspection coincided with the opening of the 723rd ballot, which came from a precinct in Victorias City, Negros Occidental. He said he saw that in one ballot, the voter shaded the names of 20 senatorial candidates and 30 party list candidates.

The RMA started on May 14, two days after the elections, with the 763 precincts randomly selected on election day. They included one ballot box from the Philippine Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand, which acted as one of the voting centers for Filipinos abroad.

The RMA committee and teams are composed of representatives and personnel from the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, Legal Network for Truthful Elections, Philippine Statistics Authority, and Philippine Institute of Certified Accountants.

Also among them are teachers under the Department of Education who did not serve as election board members in the May 12 polls.