PPCRV: Unsurprising that election returns that need validation increased to 355

The number of election returns (ERs) that needed validation grew to 355, an official of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) said Monday.

According to PCCRV Spokesperson Van dela Cruz, the church-based watchdog had received 62,752 election returns as of 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 15.

Of these election returns, 47,112 were encoded with 46,447 of them matching the digitally transmitted election returns.

Of the 655 ERs that did not match, 16 had yet to be compared with transmitted digital results, while 294 had no corresponding digital ERs.

Dela Cruz explained that the vote-counting machines that were unable to transmit poll results might account for the absent digital ERs.

“As of May 15, 5 p.m., for validation, there are 355 physical election results. This includes the ones already mentioned as of last time,” dela Cruz told reporters in a media briefing.

Asked if the increase in the number of ERs that need validation should raise alarms, PPCRV co-IT Director Dr. William Yu said it was “not surprising.”

“As we encode more returns, we expect more errors that will come out. [It could be errors in] encoding or different types of errors. Hindi po surprising,” said Yu.

“So clearly, there will always be some of those that will happen. Hindi naman siya is unusual, except that of course we’re trying to work on those now. So parang hindi na kami naghihintay sa dulo before we process that. We are already starting,” he added.

(So clearly, there will always be some of those that will happen. It’s not unusual, except that of course we’re trying to work on those now. We're not waiting to process that at the end of the [paralel count]. We are already starting.)

Yu added that the early validation effort was due to the public's interest.

He also said that another election watchdog, the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), offered to help them with the validation effort.

Earlier, PPCRV chairperson Myla Villanueva said the mismatch in 240 ERs could be due to typographical errors. — DVM, GMA News