Comelec conducts random manual audit of voting precincts

Comelec Commissioner Luie Tito Guia PHOTO by Faye Orellana/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Monday conducted a random manual audit (RMA) of select voting precincts ahead of the May 2019 midterm polls.

Commissioner Luie Tito Guia said the audit is meant to check if the Comelec needs to introduce changes in its procedures for the coming elections.

“Well, sinisimulan natin yung (we are starting the) Mock RMA in relation to the mock elections that happened last Saturday, and we would also want to test our existing procedure so we would know what to correct and improve on,” Guia said in an interview.

The RMA used the ballots in the mock elections held in 26 polling areas, or 60 precincts, nationwide last Saturday.

Poll watchdog group Kontra Daya reported several technical glitches during the mock polls.

READ: Group reports glitches in Comelec mock polls

Guia said the Comelec would again have a random manual audit of more than 700 precincts before the May elections.

“We would be choosing about 715 precincts nationwide, randomly selected, and we will read the ballots visually and then compare yung resulta ng (the results of the) ballots that were read,” he said.

The precincts will be chosen by a “random selector software” developed by the Philippine Statistics Authority.

During the 2016 elections, the Comelec took 12 to 20 days to finish the manual audit. This year, Guia said the Comelec targets to finish the audit in two weeks or less.

“We are hoping that we can finish it maybe 15 days or even shorter,” he said. /ee