PPCRV yet to tally votes due to delays in delivery of ERs

Election watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) cannot still start tallying the votes cast in last Monday's automated elections due to the delay in the delivery of election returns (ERs). "The delivery of the ERs is taking longer than expected, so we will not yet be able to [determine if the results tally]. So far we only have data from [six areas]," said Anna de Villa-Singson, PPCRV’s communications head. As a government-accredited citizen's arm, the PPCRV is using two sources for its partial unofficial tally: election results electronically transmitted to its servers directly from the election machines, and the 4th and 27th copy of printed ERs delivered through courier.
At present, only ERs from Cavite, Laguna, Cebu, Zamboanga, Zambales, and Baguio have been received by the PPCRV. Singson said the number of ERs currently on hand was too small to start comparing printed and electronically transmitted results. She said problems in logistics have been causing the delays. "It's a problem of logistics more than anything. The transit of the ERs was stalled because it did not meet the cut off of the [courier] that could have brought the ERs faster." Only 5,000 ERs had been encoded by 100 PPCRV volunteers on Tuesday, a day after the elections. This was significantly lower than the 17,000 to 19,000 ERs that Singson said could be encoded in a day. There are 76,347 ERs that must be encoded nationwide. Data from the ERs are being encoded by 100 volunteers who are mostly students from Catholic schools and who work in three shifts everyday. Singson said there would be an improvement in the encoding by Friday. "By Friday hopefully we should have finished a fairly good number of the election results," she said. PPCRV has key role In reaction to the PPCRV announcement, information technology expert Roberto Verzola who is also secretary general of poll watchdog Halalang Marangal (HALAL) said PPCRV has "three extremely important roles by virtue of its getting the 4th and 27th copies" of the ERs. The PPCRV's first role is "to make sure that the 4th and 27th copies are identical," Verzola said. "Any difference means that the PCOS data was modified during transmission and should ring alarm bells. It can mean that false data is being canvassed and consolidated at the municipal level," he added. The Comelec-accredited citizen's arm has a second role, that of making sure that their electronic ERs (received via transmission from PCOS machines) are identical with their printed 4th and 27th copies of the same ER. "Any difference means that the PCOS memory card has been corrupted with false data," Verzola explained. Assuming that the 4th and 27th printed copies and the electronic ERs are all identical, he said, PPCRV's "third role" is to make sure that their ERs and the Comelec's corresponding ERs are identical. "Assuming PPCRV verified that their ER is identical to the 4th copy, then if it differs with the Comelec, then the Comelec version is compromised. This should ring alarm bells," Verzola said. The IT expert also suggested that the that PPCRV "make its ER database available to any other election watchdog in the same way they make it available to the media, so that we can do our own analysis of the data." Latest count Meanwhile, Senator Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III on Wednesday evening maintained his lead over former President Joseph Estrada in the presidential race, according to latest partial and unofficial count from the PPCRV based on electronically transmitted results. Representing 89.03 percent (68,080) of the 76,475 precincts nationwide, the result of the counting of the votes for president as of 8:01 p.m. is as follows: 1. Aquino, BENIGNO SIMEON III - 13,673,897 (41.84 percent) 2. Estrada, JOSEPH EJERCITO - 8,652,783 (26.47 percent) 3. Villar, MANUEL JR. - 4,943,689 (15.13 percent) 4. Teodoro, GILBERTO JR. - 3,642,048 (11.14 percent)) 5. Villanueve, EDDIE - 1,015,399 (3.11 percent) 6. Gordon, RICHARD - 463,503 (1.42 percent) 7. Perlas, NICANOR - 48,516 (0.15 percent) 8. Madrigal, MA. ANA CONSUELO - 41,717 (0.13 percent) 9. De los Reyes, JC - 39,732 (0.12 percent) Villar, Teodoro, Villanueva, Gordon and De los Reyes had conceded defeat to Aquino. For the vice-presidential race, the result as of 8:01 p.m. is as follows: 1. Binay, JEJOMAR - 13,327,990 (40.78 percent) 2. Roxas, MANUEL II - 12,541,222 (38.37 percent) 3. Legarda, LOREN - 3,747,705 (11.47 percent) 4. Fernando, BAYANI - 929,583 (2.84 percent) 5. Manzano, EDUARDO - 700,324 (2.14 percent) 6. Yasay, PERFECTO - 327,962 (1.00 percent) 7. Sonza, JAY - 57,156 (0.17 percent) 8. Chipeco, DOMINADOR - 46,940 (0.14 percent) - KBK/JV, GMANews.TV