Random audit shows only 'small deficiency'
By Sheila Crisostomo (The Philippine Star) Updated May 29, 2010 12:00 AM
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MANILA, Philippines - The returns from the random manual audit of 970 polling precincts have been
processed and they showed only a “small deficiency,” an official of the Commission on Elections (Comelec)
said yesterday.
In an interview, Comelec Commissioner Lucenito Tagle said the deficiency was not concentrated in any
particular place.
“It’s scattered, almost across the country,” Tagle said.
The random manual audit is being conducted by a team led by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible
Voting (PPCRV) to determine if the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines had counted the votes
accurately.
In the random manual audit, auditors count the votes for president, vice president, congressman, governor
and mayor manually and then compare their tally with the count of the PCOS machines.
The audit returns are being processed by the National Statistics Office.
A total of 1,145 precincts have been randomly selected for random manual audit.
While the Comelec insisted that the results of the random manual audit should not affect election results,
these are expected to have an impact on the credibility of the automated polls.
According to Tagle, the auditors have spotted double-digit discrepancies in the manual and electronic
counts but “the highest discrepancy was 50 votes.”
By next week, the PPCRV may come up with the random manual audit results and these will be submitted to
Congress, he added.
2 lawmakers want Congress to examine PCOS machines
Two LP lawmakers backed yesterday the proposal of Senate President Enrile to create a joint technical
committee to examine audit logs of compact flash (CF) cards and precinct count optical scan (PCOS)
machines.
Representatives Golez of Parañaque and Joseph Abaya of Cavite said the move would allow Congress,
sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, to focus on the tabulation of votes for president and vice
president.
“This is an opportunity for Congress to ensure the integrity of our elections, and to ensure the completeness
of the certificates of canvass we will tally,” Abaya said. “We welcome and support the proposal to create a
technical committee to examine the CF cards.”
Golez said he had moved for the creation of the special tabulating body to make the job of the NBOC easier
and more accurate.
“We are talking of only 76,000 ERs equivalent to 76,000 PCOS machines,” he said.
“We have done this exercise in the party, and with a small group we are able to tabulate something like 15
COCs a day, tabulating all the ERs.
“So if we constitute a committee on tabulators, maybe harnessing tabulators coming from the Senate and
the House, we can do it at a much faster rate. We can probably do as many as 30 while we are going over
the COCs coming from overseas.
“We can start with the tabulation so that we can do away with all this uncertainty and with all this speculation.”
Enrile said the technical working group is necessary to scrutinize the CF cards and the PCOS machines. A
technical review could be done “simultaneous” with the canvassing of the presidential and vice presidential
votes, he added.
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