MANILA, Philippines – The unofficial quick count crawled along yesterday, waiting for the transmittal of 1.3 million votes from local and foreign precincts as of late afternoon and fueling tension in the tight race for the vice presidency.
Poll officials dispelled insinuations of manipulating the results, attributing the delay in transmission to the failure of elections in some areas, the long process overseas and technical issues.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) earlier reported that a failure of elections had been declared in Cordova town in Cebu; Maitum, Sarangani; Sta. Cruz, Marinduque; Anini-y and San Remigio in Antique; Lope de Vega, Northern Samar; Matuguinao, Western Samar; Pata and Panglima Estino in Sulu; and Tamparan and Binidayan in Lanao del Sur.
These areas will hold special elections tomorrow.
Meanwhile, transmission of election results from other countries, particularly in North America, was taking a long time because election results had to be brought to capital cities where embassies are located, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) communications director Ana de Villa-Singson earlier said.
De Villa-Singson said the delay in transmission might have been caused by lack of signal and manpower, and the proximity of the area to the central server.
“It is the traditional pattern of transmission, the later the time, the harder it becomes to transmit,” she said.
She added it would take four more days to increase the transmission rate by just two-percent.
As of 4:45 p.m. yesterday, the PPCRV recorded 95.85-percent of the precincts counted.
The citizen election arm is still waiting for about 1.3 million votes from local and foreign precincts, applying presumptive voter turnout percentages.
PPCRV chair Henrietta de Villa yesterday said the number could still have an effect on election results.
Considering the wait for the outcome of the special election tomorrow and the presumably late entry of results overseas, the elder De Villa joked that the PPCRV “will have to wait for another week.”
She, however, dismissed fears of concerned citizens that the delay in transmission could cause tampering of results.
Merely for correction
Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista yesterday confirmed that the script for the transparency server was changed by Smartmatic but the correction was merely cosmetic and that it wouldn’t affect election results.
In a press briefing, Bautista said that last May 9 at around 7 p.m., a PPCRV observer called the attention of the Comelec
information technology (IT) officer concerning the presence of
question marks in some candidates’ names where the letter ñ should have appeared.
“The Comelec IT officer then informed Smartmatic of the matter and the latter afterwards addressed the concern by introducing
a correction on the script. They announced this in the presence of
everyone present inside the PPCRV command center including political parties, members of the media and Comelec IT officers,” he said.
The Comelec chief stressed that “the change made in the script of the transparency server is merely cosmetic and will not in any way affect the results, the counting, canvassing of votes and in the source code of the automated election system.”
Bautista said the change was not necessary, and that they proceeded with it because it’s just a minor change, and for it to look cleaner.
“There is no cheating whatsoever. Our Comelec records are open to the public for scrutiny, and if you wish to obtain records from us, we will provide you with what you need,” he said.
Commissioner Christian Robert Lim explained that the moment you change the script, it’s automatic that the hash code will also change.
“The combination of the script will produce a unique hash code, even if you change one letter it will automatically change the hash code,” he said.
He clarified though that the change made only affected the hash code of the data packet system for the transparency server, and not the hash code for the automated election system comprising vote counting machines (VCMs), election management, and the consolidation and canvassing system.
However, Lim also pointed out that there were lapses in protocol.
“We should have been informed by Smartmatic that they wanted this change and before effecting the change, they should have announced it to the concerned parties.”
Bautista said they would check if Smartmatic should be held liable for the incident “but the main issue here is if it is affecting the election results.”
“We also knew that with respect to the vice presidential race it is going to be close. Naturally you’ll see this all happening. I don’t know where all these doubts are coming from, but to me since this is a hotly contested political race there will be a lot of political conditioning. This is part and parcel, so in the end my appeal to the media and the public is to get the data, get the figures. If there are allegations of cheating, we will be more than willing to provide the necessary data in order to disprove,” he said.
Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is running a close second to Liberal Party’s bet Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo in the vice presidential race.
Marcos’ camp said that a new script “was introduced to the transparency server,” which “altered” the hash codes of the Comelec’s packet data.
They alleged that the senator’s lead of about one million votes began to erode after the change in the script was made.
Discrepancy reports
Reports about discrepancies and missent electronically transmitted vote results hit the fourth day of the canvassing of votes for senators and party-list by the Comelec, sitting as National Board of Canvassers (NBOC).
As of press time, the NBOC had canvassed 109 of the 165 certificates of canvass. This includes 51 of the 58 COCs from overseas absentee voting.
But in yesterday’s proceedings, it was found that there were two vote results transmitted from Davao del Sur.
One pertains to vote results generated during the pre-logic and accuracy tests (prelat) conducted on the VCMs while the other is the official COCs containing the votes garnered by candidates in the province.
According to NBOC member Christian Robert Lim, it turned out that the prelat results in the VCMs for the entire province were not erased so they were also transmitted to the national canvassing center.
Lim said the transmitted results contained the 1,797 votes for prelat while the actual voter’s turnout in the province is 310,010 or 82.9 percent of the 373,692 registered voters.
“Obviously, it is impossible that that is the only voters’ turnout in Davao del Sur. It’s definitely more than 1,797,” he told reporters.
Comelec’s provincial election supervisor for Davao del Sur Allan Cadon told the NBOC that they “successfully” transmitted the official COCs to the canvassing center.
As of press time, however, the center has not received the results, prompting the lawyers and representatives of the senatorial bets and party-list groups to ask the NBOC to investigate the matter.
In the town of Rizal in Laguna, Lim noted that prelat results were also the ones sent to the canvassing center.
“They uploaded the results using the back-up CD. What was written there was the prelat. So prelat was (sent), not the actual results from the municipality of Rizal,” he added.
There were reports from candidates’ lawyers and representatives about discrepancies of votes in the transparency server and central server from which the board gets the COCs to be canvassed.
Among the areas where the discrepancies were noted were Benguet and Davao del Norte.
The board had asked them to put their reports in writing for proper disposition.
No canvassed report yet
Despite its commitment to be transparent, the Comelec has not released any canvassed report since it started tabulating the votes for senators and party-list groups on Tuesday.
Abono party-list secretary general Raul Casipit raised this concern during yesterday’s proceedings of the NBOC where he questioned why the board has not made the documents available.
“Until now, we have not seen any canvassed report. Every election, you will recall that they were giving us updated reports No. 1, 2, 3 and so forth. They contain the summary of votes. But now there is none,” he told reporters.
Casipit said the reports are supposed to show the official aggregate total of votes acquired by candidates in certain places.
“They should provide us with the canvassed reports that are signed by whoever is the authorized signatory,” he noted.
He added such documents would eventually become the basis in proclaiming the winners in last Monday’s polls.
Even media covering the canvassing have not secured copies of the canvassed reports.
Senate receives COCs
Meanwhile, the Senate has received COCs from 18 areas, including the local absentee voting, as it readies to join the House of Representatives to convene as National Board of Canvassers by May 25.
The Senate has received COCs from San Juan, Malabon, Tarlac, Oriental Mindoro, Pasig, Taguig-Pateros, Romblon, Sorsogon, Mandaluyong City, Baguio City, Quirino, Ilocos Sur, Guimaras, Ifugao, Batanas, Zambales, Camarines Norte and Tarlac.
A total of 107 COCs are to be gathered nationwide, and 61 from overseas absentee voting or a total of 168 COCs.
For the first time since the country adopted the automated elections, the PPCRV was given a ballot box that contained 45 election returns (ERs) from local absentee voting (LAV) for manual encoding.
De Villa-Singson described as “historic” yesterday’s arrival of the ballot box with LAV ERs, as the poll watchdog had never received such previously.
“For the first time we are handling the LAV. I do not want this box to be opened without witnesses. This is to show that everything is in order,” Singson said.
Before 4 p.m. yesterday, the Comelec sent to the PPCRV Command Center on UN Avenue, Manila a yellow sealed ballot box containing the envelops of 45 ERs taken from different LAV centers.
Quiapo Church vicar Fr. Marvin Cruz witnessed the opening of the box and envelops along with the PPCRV officials, poll watchers, journalists and representatives of candidates. – With Rhodina Villanueva, Sheila Crisostomo, Evelyn Macairan, Christina Mendez