Minimal discrepancies noted
By Tetch Torres
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 15:37:00 05/19/2010
Filed Under: Elections, Eleksyon 2010
MANILA, Philippines—Election watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) concluded that there is no systematic cheating during the May 10 elections after it has discovered minimal discrepancies from election returns and data transmissions from precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.
Out of 43,035 election returns (ERs) encoded, PPCRV Communications Head Ana De Villa-Singson said they have discovered on 29 discrepancies from 29 precincts.
“As of May 18 we have encoded 43,035 copies of ERs out of this 43,035 we saw 29 discrepancies which means there are 29 precincts where the data in the ER does not exactly match the transmitted data but it does not mean that all the data does not match, it means that at least one data does not match,” Singson said
Singson said the discrepancies can be clustered into four kinds:
1. The fourth ER reflects the votes cast but the transmitted data of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) server the data was equal to zero in four precincts.
2. In two precincts, all the data in the ER and the transmitted were correct except for one candidate whose vote was less than one vote in the transmitted data.
3. The data transmitted to the server was less to the numerical value of less than 10 even if the ER reflects a hundred. This occurred in 19 precincts.
4. The ER reflect number of which the value is less than 10 while the transmitted data reflect a larger number and this occurred in 4 precincts.
But Singson clarified that the discrepancies did not show any patter meaning it happened against one particular candidate.
Atty. Howard Calleja said they did not see any patter of fraud.
“We will forward this to Comelec for investigation,” Calleja said.
“We can say that the election is clean because the discrepancy is very minimal,” PPCRV Chair Henrietta De Villa said.
De Villa added “without a doubt we will recommend the continuation of the automation.”
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20100519-270927/Election-is-cleanPPCRV
