PPCRV suspends unofficial tally upon Comelec’s orders

MANILA, Philippines–The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV)’s partial and unofficial election tally went dark Thursday night as the Commission on Elections (Comelec) proceeded with the proclamation of winning senatorial candidates.

At 6:46 p.m., just minutes shy of 72 hours after polling precincts closed last Monday, the PPCRV and its partner the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) stopped releasing its Election 2013 Count.

“Upon Comelec’s instructions we will be temporarily suspending this service until the completion of the proclamation of the winning senatorial candidates,” flashed on the giant screens in the PPCRV operations center in the Pope Pius XII Center in Manila.

The partial and unofficial count of the electronically transmitted election returns (ERs) in the senatorial and party list race stopped at 6:01 p.m. with results from only 59,551, or 76.18 per cent, of the total 78,166 clustered precincts tallied.

This represented more than 11.5 million unaccounted votes, according to the PPCRV data.

“Yes, based on our accreditation we are bound to comply with Comelec rules. Nonetheless we will continue receiving and analyzing (transmitted ERs) and will release after proclamation,” PPCRV media and communications director Ana De Villa-Singson said in a text message around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.

“Our manual encoding of ERs as an audit of the transmitted files will not stop,” Singson added.

This means that even if it cannot show its unofficial tally, the PPCRV will continue to receive election returns transmitted to the Comelec Transparency Server.

The two major political groups, media networks and Namfrel are also linked to the Transparency Server.

PPCRV and KBP on Thursday complained to Comelec about the “trickle” rate of the transmission, saying 11.5 million unaccounted votes was “too high.”