Vann dela Cruz, PPCRV spokesperson.
WITH 86.6 percent, or 93,347, of the total 107,785 election returns (ERs) received by the Parish Pastoral Council first Responsible Voting (PPCRV), the citizen’s arm of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) allayed fears of cheating or fraud as it pointed out that having small disparities in the vote count didn’t mean outright irregularities.
From what it has already gathered, the PPCRV has declared that 77,786 ERs are consistent with the digitized results the recently local and national elections.
In addition, it said that it has found physical copies of election returns (ERs) whose vote count did not match the digitally transmitted results, but the poll watchdog stopped short of saying that these indicated irregularities.
The discrepancies in the tabulations, it said, involved only “one or two votes” for candidates for president, vice president and some senatorial candidates, said Vann dela Cruz, spokesperson for Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV).
“The miniscule numbers will not affect the over 31-million vote lead of former senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. over his chief rival, outgoing vice president Ma. Leonor ‘Leni’ Robredo. (Also,) our volunteers found four election returns that do not match with their electronically transmitted counterparts,” PPCRV spokesperson Vann Dela Cruz noted.
Accordingly, he revealed that the ERs with discrepancies in the actual vote count came from Mandaon town, Masbate; Pitogo and Sariaya municipalities in Quezon province; and Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu province.
“The conflicting vote counts were found in a batch of ERs the PPCRV was manually validating over a 24-hour period ending at 5 p.m. on Friday against the digitized results sent to the transparency server at the University of Santo Tomas (UST),” he said.
Dela Cruz, who is also PPCRV legal counsel, said they had informed the Comelec about this and was awaiting its explanation.
