PPCRV on Comelec’s explanation of ‘mislabeled’ data: Case closed

Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting spokesperson Ana Singson presents the PPCRV’s stance on the Commission on Election’s explanation of the ‘mislabeled’ election data the poll watchdog raised in a press briefing at the PPCRV command center on Friday, May 16, 2025. — Photo from Dianne Sampang/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) on Friday considered the incident involving “mislabeled” election data of the Commission on Elections as “case closed” as the Comelec explained that the scanned ballots cast by the voters were labeled as valid ballots cast, thus creating confusion.

PPCRV Spokesperson Ana Singson said that the Comelec provided the explanation shortly after they asked about the alleged discrepancies between voters who actually voted and the number of valid ballots cast in Dumaguete City and Zamboanga.

“It’s apparently a mislabeling, logistical issue more than anything else. We’re considering this as case closed already for this particular issue,” Singson said in a press briefing at the PPCRV command center.

READ: PPCRV to Comelec: Elaborate on ‘mislabeled’ election data

Singson on Thursday cited a voting center in Calindagan, Dumaguete City as an example where the Comelec data showed that there were 930 registered voters at the center, and 814 voted in the 2025 midterm polls. However, data showed that 956 valid ballots were cast.

Presenting the response of Comelec Director Ester Villaflor Roxas, who explained that there were the total number of valid ballots, defined as the “valid ballots that are actually cast into the ballot box,” and the total number of scanned ballots or the “sum of the valid and rejected and returned ballots.”

Roxas said that the data was labeled as the total number of scanned ballots “hence the number of valid ballots included the rejected, returned and valid ballots which sum up to more than the number of voters actually voted.”

Further explaining the incident, Singson said that some voters scanned the ballots more than once due to machine rejection.

“The error was the data that they showed, they mislabeled it. They showed the data that was scanned when they should have shown the actual valid number of ballots that has since been adjusted,” Singson noted.

READ: PPCRV receives final batch of election return files

Singson also said that the data of the scanned ballots should not appear in the first place.

“They already fixed and pointed it towards its right definition of the valid ballots because the first one, they considered the scanned as the valid ballots when it should have been valid data ballot,” she added. /das