Canvass is quicker now, and there's PPCRV and vote audit committee

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) does not see the need to accredit the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections's (Namfrel) to do an unofficial quick count in the May elections.

Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal told reporters on Monday that with the automation of this year's election, people will be able to see election results faster even without quick counts.

"As soon as the data is sent [from the election machines] to the server of Comelec, we will upload this to our secure website. So, people can already see the results of the elections right then and there," he said.

This is a response to the request of Namfrel, which conducted quick counts in previous elections, to be accredited as an official citizen arm of the poll body this year. Being an accredited citizen arm will entitle a group to get the 4th copy of the election returns (ERs), the certificates of votes to be generated by the automated machines, and the 7th copy of the manually prepared ERs, if any.

Larrazabal said the Comelec so far has the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) as its solely accredited citizen arm for the May polls. Newsbreak reported earlier about the silent conflict between the PPCRV and Namfrel.

Larrazabal added that there are other groups aside from Namfrel that are asking for accreditation to be a citizen arm. These are mostly local groups that want to do quick count of local elections. Comelec has not accredited any of them yet.

Namfrel is also seeking accreditation to conduct random manual audit of votes.

Under the automation law, a random manual audit of 1 precinct per district shall be conducted to test the integrity of the machines. Namfrel wants to conduct manual audit in 5-10% of the precincts per district to ensure that the machines are not tampered with.

But Larrazabal said that there is no need for Namfrel to handle the manual auditing, as the poll body has already created a committee that will do that. He said that the committee is currently setting guidelines for the manual audit, which will be submitted to Comelec anytime soon.

He added that teachers who will sit as Board of Election Inspectors (BEIs) will be tasked to do the manual audit of votes. The Department of Education will randomly select BEIs to audit votes in precincts other than the center in which they have served.

"But representatives of political parties and civic organizations can watch [and] observe the proceedings," Larrazabal added. (Newsbreak)