Random surveys and audit

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has decided with finality they will conduct the mandated random manual audit as they rejected the proposed parallel manual counting of votes. This will be implemented when we hold our country’s first-ever automated elections on May 10.

But petitioners led by influential businessmen and lawyers’ groups identified with certain candidates running in the May 10 national elections are undaunted by the unanimous decision of the Comelec. They are still pushing for the conduct of parallel manual count of votes and reiterated their threats to bring their cause to the parliament of the streets.

There are exactly 10 days left before the elections. As far as all candidates are concerned — from presidential, vice presidential and senatorial — this is the homestretch of the 90-day campaign.

For candidates supposedly lagging behind in the pre-poll surveys, it’s never-say-die. But for those who are supposedly within the winning streak, it’s the final surge that will bring them to sure victory come election day.

Surveys and mock polls do not decide actual results of the election. But for those leading in these pre-poll surveys, they have been making statements to the effect that the only reason in case they lose the elections is if they are cheated. That’s the trouble with this kind of logic.

Pre-poll surveys being done by both the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia have shown that Liberal Party (LP) presidential bet Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and his vice presidential running mate Sen. Mar Roxas II have consistently topped the race. The latest SWS survey was conducted from April 16 to 19 while the Pulse Asia did their survey from April 23-25. Both surveys validated, more or less, each other’s results. 

But in the latest Pulse Asia survey, it showed a big surge in the rating of former President Joseph Estrada who has tied at 20 percent with Nacionalista Party (NP) presidential standard-bearer Sen. Manny Villar in second place behind Aquino. Estrada’s rise in his rating in the Pulse Asia survey was attributed to the prevailing campaign issues during the period that included his camp’s intensified attacks against Villar.

In both SWS and Pulse Asia surveys, the most revealing results were those of Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay, vice presidential candidate of the United Opposition (UNO). Binay is Estrada’s vice presidential running mate.

In the SWS survey, Binay pulled ahead over Villar’s vice presidential running mate Sen. Loren Legarda — and cut Roxas’ lead by another seven percent. For the fourth consecutive survey, Binay’s SWS numbers have increased — from 10 percent in December to 25 percent in April. Roxas’ lead over Binay has dropped from 33 percent in January to 14 percent in April. In the latest Pulse Asia survey, Binay took over the second slot with 28 percent against Legarda who got 20 percent. Pulse Asia said Binay gained nine percentage points in electoral support while Legarda’s score dropped from 23 percent in March to 20 percent now.

Although keeping his lead in the vice presidential race, the score of Roxas has dropped to 39 percent in the April survey from a high of 49 percent in the January SWS survey. Despite a six percentage point decline in his overall voter preference in the Pulse Asia survey period from March to April, Roxas still has the lead in the vice presidential race with 37 percent of registered voters supporting his candidacy.

Pollsters explain the survey results as an indication of how people react positively or negatively on the campaign issues and scandals being racked up among bitter rivals, especially in the presidential and vice presidential race. The prevailing campaign issues and news coming out in media during the survey period were identified as possible influence on the respondents’ preference of candidates.

In the case of Binay’s rise in his latest rating, the Pulse Asia noted that the survey was taken during the period when Senate opposition leader Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero endorsed the candidacy of Aquino and the Makati Mayor as his vice presidential candidate. This endorsement was one of the 11 developments that took place during the survey period.  

It was also during the same period of the Pulse Asia survey that Bagumbayan presidential candidate Sen. Richard “Dick” Gordon sued both the SWS and Pulse Asia before the Quezon City regional trial court and the petitions from various sectors for a parallel manual count of votes that came out in media.

The results of these surveys show how fickle the voters’ preference of candidates are, and no one could accurately pin down who they would really vote for on May 10. That is, if we believe these surveys.

The random sample population of the SWS is composed of 2,400 registered respondents while the Pulse Asia took in 1,800 registered voters who were interviewed face-to-face in the conduct of their surveys. Definitely, both numbers pale in comparison with the more than one million registered voters who would be the subject of the random manual audit that the Comelec is mandated to conduct under their own implementing rules on the Automated Elections Law.

I heard yesterday Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal’s interview over DzRH radio station where he announced that more than one million registered voters will be covered by the poll body’s random manual audit. Contrary to claims that the random manual audit will be done after the proclamation of winners, Larrazabal stressed it will be conducted by the Comelec as soon as the PCOS machines are shut down.

The Comelec has only itself to blame for the proliferation of such disinformation peddled by those making last-ditch attempts to derail our automated elections. The poll body ought to step up its voters’ education and information campaign if only to battle the hearts and minds of the people on the conduct of our country’s first attempt on automated elections.

These candidates are only too willing to believe the results of these pre-election surveys. But why can’t they accept the random manual audit of the Comelec which is more or less like a survey that the poll body is mandated to do as a check against election fraud? I wonder why.