Unofficial poll tally can be reported midnight of May 10, PPCRV says

The accredited citizen’s arm of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday said that it could start reporting its unofficial tally as early as 12 midnight on Election Day itself. The group is hoping to obtain copies of election returns (ERs) — which contains the precinct-level tally of votes — from the National Capital Region (NCR) first because it is the nearest, the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said on Tuesday. “The moment voting in NCR closes, it would be easy to get the copy of the ERs. That would be the first batch of data [we could collate and report to the public]. We would be able to start presenting towards midnight of May 10," PPCRV chair Henrietta De Villa told GMANews.TV in a phone interview. The PPCRV would be obtaining three copies of election data to validate the accuracy of the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines, she said. “It should not have discrepancies [in the results]. There might be some in the beginning because election data would come in a staggered manner, but in the end, results should not be different," she added. PPCRV stressed that it would be conducting a partial unofficial tally of the votes from multiple sources, including the fourth copy of the ER generated by the PCOS machines before these are transmitted to servers and to the Comelec. Half a million volunteers for the Church organization would be working round the clock in three shifts, De Villa said. “The Church is a natural breeding ground for volunteers. Parishes themselves monitor that our volunteers would have that one criterion — non-partisan," De Villa added. A hundred volunteers at the PPCRV Command Center in Manila would encode data and upload this on its website, as well as display these in the command center. The group would conduct the unofficial tally until May 15, and the latest would be until May 20. But at the same time, she assured that they are ready for a prolonged canvassing of votes. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV