Comelec chooses precincts for random manual checks

(Updated 1:33 PM) The Commission on Elections began at 11:30 a.m. the drawing of lots for the more than 1,000 precincts to undergo Random Manual Audit (RMA), a mechanism to check if the poll counting machines produced accurate results. The draw, which is ongoing as of posting time, is being led by Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) Henrietta de Villa, as well as Comelec Chair Jose Melo and other poll body commissioners.
Members of the media and poll officials extracted numbers from a "tambyolo" usually used in common raffle draws. "Pinili namin itong tambyolo para nakikita ng lahat [ang binubunot na numero], para hindi sabihin ng iba na may tinatago na naman (We have chosen to use the tambiolo to make the draw transparent to avoid any doubts we are hiding something," De Villa said. As of 12:30 p.m., the poll body has randomly drawn the following clustered precincts in several congressional districts across the country:

Batanes (lone, 30 precincts): Precincts 1, 29, 18, 11, 17 Camiguin (lone, 82 precincts): 55, 42, 78, 54, 80 San Juan City (lone, 106 precincts): 105, 91, 8, 80, 70 Dinagat Islands (lone, 128 precincts): 49, 55, 18, 83, 24 Valenzuela City (1st, 136 precincts): 34, 123, 76, 124, 79 Siquijor (lone, 141 precincts): 29, 38, 65, 74, 53 Apayao (lone, 142 precincts): 35, 9, 32, 98, 77 Guimaras (lone, 142 precincts): 104, 51, 11, 78, 17 Surigao del Norte (1st district, 150 precincts): 63, 37, 9, 36, 134 Valenzuela City (2nd district, 160): 22, 96, 53, 31, 69 Biliran (lone, 166): 89, 103, 22, 153, 108 Navotas (lone, 168): 45, 78, 107, 21, 88

Under RA 9369 or the Automated Elections Law, a random manual audit is required to test if poll machines have counted results accurately. Five precincts per legislative district will undergo the random manual audit. There are 229 legislative districts in the country, bringing to 1,145 the total number of precincts to undergo the RMA. The RMA's Technical Working Group comprises one representative each from the PPCRV, Comelec Internal Audit, and National Statistics Office (NSO), who were present to witness Monday's drawing. "We've excluded the least accessible barangays. These are barangays that can be reached only through eight hours or more of walking or whose trips are three times a week only, or transportation fare to the barangay is P500 or more. We excluded 350 barangays from the list that will be selected. These are the same number of barangays that we exclude from our national surveys at NSO," NSO Administrator Carmelita Ericta said. De Villa added that political parties were invited to witness the drawing for the RMA. According to Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, only one representative from the Liberal Party was spotted at the poll body's command center at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) on Sunday. - LBG, RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV