Poll watchdog: ‘Double count’ in transmitted votes already removed

Metro Manila, Philippines - Poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) noted on Tuesday, May 13, that the “double count” in the transmitted votes from the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) transparency server has already been removed.

PPCRV IT Director William Yu shared that they received dumps of transmitted votes on Monday, 8:15 p.m. but they did not immediately publicize it due to a “slight mismatch” from the partial results that were released by other transparency server receiving parties.

Five hours later, they were informed that they will be sent a revised dump to remove the duplicates.

“We looked at the historical transmission, so all the dump files before 2 a.m., we were able to compare it against the results. If we apply the filter to remove the duplicate, they would match the initial tallies that we have,” Yu told the media.

The PPCRV said it reached out to the Comelec and relayed that the poll body is investigating the issue.

In a separate interview, Comelec chairman George Garcia said they told the media to use a program that would remove duplicate votes.

As of posting, the Comelec has transmitted 98.75 percent of votes to its servers.

Based on the PPCRV’s data, they have processed 79.9 percent of transmitted votes from the Comelec transparency server. Some 18 percent was also received but has yet to be accessed due to file format issues.

The poll watchdog said it is in coordination with the Comelec to “resolve the gap.”