2013 election results 99.97% accurate, random audit shows

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday released the results of the agency's random manual audit (RMA) which showed that the results of 2013 automated polls were 99.9 percent accurate.

 

At a televised press briefing, the Comelec revealed that there was a 99.9747-percent accuracy rate and no major discrepancy between the automated results of the PCOS machines and the manual audit of the RMA team.

 

This rate is higher than the 99.6 accuracy in the first automated elections in 2010, according to the Comelec.

 

For this year, there was a 99.9775-percent accuracy rate for the results of the senatorial polls, 99.9748-percent for the congressional district race, and 99.9748-percent for the mayoral elections.

 

Only the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao had a 100-percent accuracy for the senatorial race results.

 

The accuracy rate this year, however, still failed to meet the 99.995-percent accuracy rate for the PCOS as required by law.

 

But Henrietta De Villa, RMA committee chair, said it is "almost impossible" for the results of the RMA and of the automated count to be the same.

 

"Imposible, kasi sa manual count, you have the human appreciation and human error to contend with," she said. "Para sa amin nga, any decimal... na um-increase ang nearness to the [required] PCOS accuracy is already like striking goal."

 

The Comelec said as required by law, the RMA covers one clustered precinct per legislative district, for a total of 234 sample clustered precincts.

 

The RMA is done by manually counting the votes and comparing these with the PCOS tally. It involves four processes: the  sample selection of precincts, the counting, the Comelec validation, and the processing and analysis by a group of experts from the National Statistics Office.

 

Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes said this accuracy and the results of the RMA validate the "success" of this year's polls.

 

"[T]he elections of the 2013 must, at least, be categorized as successful," said Brillantes, adding that the rules for the RMA this year were "very sophisticated."

 

"When we go to the next elections, siguro po, hindi na 99.9 (percent), kundi 99.99995," the poll chief said.

 

But despite the accuracy of the 2013 elections, Brillantes believes that their critics "cannot be silenced."

 

"The critics will always look for the negatives... They will remain as critics for the next hundred years, probably," the poll chief said. "They will always criticize everything and look for the faults and the negatives despite of the 99.9 (percent accuracy). I think they wil still look for the .02 or .01."

 

He added that the review of the PCOS machine's source code is also ongoing.