PPCRV looks into delays in sending poll results

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) has mobilized its volunteers to look into delays in the transmission of electronic results from precincts to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) transparency server in Manila.

“We know precisely which precincts and municipalities were not transmitting because we have the server date. So we can drill down to the municipality,” the Church-based watchdog’s spokesperson, Ana de Villa-Singson, said on Monday, noting that the first automated polling in 2010 was faster.

As of Monday, a week after Election Day, Singson said results from 76.33 percent of the 78,166 precincts nationwide had so far been sent to the

Comelec server, still less than the roughly 80-percent transmission rate the morning after the elections in 2010.

Singson said the PPCRV was checking with parishes to determine which precincts were having problems. She said the group was asking the help of bishops.

“We have to know. We can’t be blind,” she told the Inquirer.

The council has been noting a slow transmission of election results from polling precincts to the Comelec’s transparency server since Tuesday morning, after an initial surge in data just hours after the voting ended at 7 p.m., May 13.

Lanao del Sur, a perennial problem area, has the lowest transmission rate among all provinces, with only 16 percent, or 182, of the total 1,146 precincts having sent data so far. In Ifugao, only 60 of the 232 precincts, or 26 percent, have sent results so far.

Other provinces where less than half of the total precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines have so far sent results include Sultan Kudarat (40 percent), Basilan and Maguindanao (42 percent) and Zamboanga del Norte (43 percent).

The PPCRV continues to manually encode election returns (ERs) as part of its audit of the results.

Singson said volunteers had so far encoded 40,000 ERs out of the expected 78,166. Considered to be the “purest form of data,” ERs are printouts released by PCOS machines even before electronically transmitting data to the Comelec server.

The PPCRV has also resumed its public release of partial and unofficial results after stopping on Thursday on Comelec’s orders pending the proclamation of the winning senators.

The Comelec continued to get hammered by poll watchdog groups for its alleged inefficiency and incompetence.

Kontra Daya on Monday rejected claims by Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. of a conspiracy among critics of the computerized balloting.

“The real conspiracy we should be worried about is between the Comelec and Smartmatic,” the group said, referring to the poll body’s provider of what it described as “unreliable” PCOS machines worth P1.8 billion.

“It is the conspiracy to cover up the widespread machine failures and transmission problems that occurred during the elections. It is the conspiracy to shun accountability for the problem of the automated election system. It is the conspiracy to trump transparency and integrity,” Kontra Daya convenor Fr. Joe Dizon said.

“We will be studying what legal options taxpayers have so that there will be accountability for the failures and problems that marked the 2013 elections,” Kontra Daya’s Giovanni Tapang said.

“The Comelec should be beholden to the people, not to any foreign corporation like Smartmatic. When 30 percent of the PCOS machines fail to transmit votes, the Comelec should be the first to raise hell against Smartmatic. The problem is that the Comelec willfully entered into a problematic agreement with a foreign private corporation, effectively surrendering a sovereign function to a foreign entity and ending up defending a questionable system,” Tapang said.

According to Gabriela Rep. Luz Ilagan, the Comelec has only itself to blame for the questions and brickbats. It didn’t help, she said, that Brillantes would blow his top at almost every turn even if legitimate questions were raised.

“If you are in public office, you should be ready to accept criticism,” Ilagan said in a phone interview. “Besides, he had it coming because of his premature statement that this is one of the best, if not the best election and so on, when there were still many questions.”

“The Brillantes-led Comelec, in refusing to address legitimate concerns on the PCOS machine from the very beginning, blurred and blackened what was supposed to be a transparent and credible exercise,” she said.

“This year’s election is worse than the 2010 polls, almost comparable to elections during the Marcos era—full of discrepancies,” Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano said.

ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said, “The issue of manipulation will inevitably be raised the longer it takes to complete the canvassing of votes.”

Originally posted: 9:12 pm | Monday, May 20th, 2013