MANILA, Philippines – The National Citizen’s Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) on Wednesday asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to exert all efforts to transmit all unreported election returns (ERs), noting that it is critical to the senatorial race.
“Comelec municipal and provincial election officers should exert all efforts to transmit unreported ERs to reduce the 2.25 percent untransmitted ERs because the numbers are critical in the senatorial contest where the figures among those in Numbers 10 to 14 positions are very close,” Namfrel said in a statement.
The poll watchdog noted that as of Wednesday, the results in the partial and unofficial senatorial count in the Comelec transparency server covered 97.75 percent or 83,842 of the local election returns nationwide.
The 2.25 percent untransmitted ERs account for 1,930 local election returns, Namfrel said.
“Assuming a 75 percent turnout of voters in the May 13 elections, this means 1,043,721 votes which should still be coming in,” it stressed.
“This number is large enough to reorder the positions in the senatorial race, and most importantly, define without doubt the No. 12 or the last placer. The margin of votes between the current 10th to the 14th placer now stands at 398,000 well within the 1,043,721 unaccounted votes,” it added.
Battling it out for the 10th to 14th spots are former senator Bong Revilla, Jr. and reelectionist senators Koko Pimentel, Nancy Binay, JV Ejercito, and Bam Aquino.
Namfrel claimed that untransmitted ERs were 9.5% of 76,528 ERs in 2010; 24% of 78,193 ERs in 2013; and 3.5% of 92,506 ERs in 2016.
Namfrel also asked the Comelec to make the “aggregation procedure” open to the public.
“In this election however, not only should the 2.25 percent untransmitted rate be reduced to the lowest level possible, but Comelec should also open the aggregation procedure to the political parties, election monitoring bodies and to the general public. Every vote counts,” it said. (Editor: Gilbert S. Gaviola)