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Poll results vary owing to different computer specs


Poll results released by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) fail to match those announced by non-government organizations — including the body’s accredited citizens’ arm — because their computing and transmission capacities are different. This was pointed out by various Comelec officials interviewed by GMANews.TV on Thursday. Computers used by the Parish Pastoral Council on Responsible Voting (PPCRV) — the accredited citizens’ arm of the Comelec — use "a certain kind of memory" that slows down their hardware, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez told GMANews.TV. "Mabagal siya kaya di siya masyadong efficient (It's slow so it's not that efficient)," he said, saying that this was "pretty much" the reason why the watchdog could not immediately receive all the election returns (ERs). Electronically printed by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine, an election return indicates the date, location, and results of voting in a precint. The ERs are also transmitted by the PCOS to the Comelec’s central servers. The Comelec’s computers also have a larger cache, Jimenez said in a separate text message to GMANews.TV. A larger cache allows a computer’s central processing unit (CPU) to access data faster. The poll body has already received 99.7 percent of the transmitted election returns (ER) from 76,347 clustered precincts all over the country, Jimenez said. But the PPCRV and GMA Network Inc. have only processed 90.20 percent and 90.26 percent of the ERs, respectively. GMA Network gets its data from the PPCRV server which was provided by the Comelec to the poll watchdog for being the accredited citizens' arm for the May automated polls. Moreover, different poll results between the Comelec and the PPCRV can also be explained by the poll body’s bigger bandwidth. A bigger bandwidth allows more data from voting machines to be received by the Comelec’s servers, the poll body’s Information Technology (IT) consultant Renato Garcia told GMANews.TV in a separate interview. PCOS machines are expected to transmit election results to the Comelec central server, the municipal board of canvassers, and the PPCRV, among others. "Wireless yan eh, in some cases siguro sila di makatiyempo (They use wireless broadbands, maybe in some cases the PCOS could not get a good signal)," he said. The Comelec plans to reconcile all data received by the servers by bringing in the Compact Flash (CF) cards from precincts which were not able to transmit to Metro Manila and transmit them here, Garcia added. In the meantime, the PPCRV has been unable to check the progress in the receipt of data from PCOS machines because its server is being moved to another place, Ana de Villa-Singson, the group’s media communications director said. According to the GMA tally as of May 20,2010 12:23 p.m., the leading presidential and vice presidential bets are Senator Benigno Aquino IIIwith 13,842,049 votes and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay with 13,492,375 votes. The PPCRV tally as of May 18, 2010 as of 12:50 p.m. likewise shows that Aquino is leading with 13,841,583 votes and Binay with 13,491,946 votes. A joint session of the Congress, sitting as the National Board of Canvassers, will canvass the votes cast for president and vice president. On the other hand, the Comelec will proclaim the winners for the party-list race. Earlier, it has already proclaimed the 12 winning senators. - RJAB Jr., GMANews.TV

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