Random manual vote audit to cover 762 precincts

MANILA, Philippines —  The Commission on Elections (Comelec)’s random manual audit (RMA), to be conducted immediately after the casting of the last votes on May 12, will cover 762 polling precincts.

“We will use an electronic raffle system to select the 762 polling precincts to be subjected to the RMA,” Comelec Chairman George Garcia said after the launch of the RMA committee (RMAC) yesterday at the Citadines Hotel in Pasay City.

He added that a Philippine post abroad that used the online voting system would also be subjected to the RMA. There are over 100,000 polling precincts across the country.

“It is possible to cover more Philippine posts abroad for the RMA depending on the request of the committee,” he said.

Under Comelec Resolution No. 11089, the number of polling precincts covered by the RMA is based on the proportional number of clustered precincts in every legislative district nationwide.

There will only be one Philippine post that shall be randomly selected from a list of areas that will use the Online Voting and Counting System.

The Comelec said the random selection of clustered precincts to be covered by the RMA shall be conducted publicly on election day.

Garcia said the RMA is intended to check if the poll results produced by the voting machines would match those from manually counted ballots.

“The public, especially those doubting the election results, should wait for the results of the RMA as it will be the one to determine if the votes counted by the machines are correct,” the official said, adding that since the 2010 polls, the RMA has determined 99.9 percent accuracy rates between the manual and automated counting results.

Also part of the RMAC are representatives from the Department of Education, Philippine Statistics Authority, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, Legal Network for Truthful Elections and Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants.