Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, May 10) — The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) said it has not yet received any evidence of cheating or voting fraud, adding that the May elections were generally orderly and peaceful.
Namfrel Secretary General Eric Alvia said there were fewer reports of malfunctioning machines this year (1,800) than in 2019 which had around 5,000. He added that among the reports of election returns submitted to them, they did not detect any irregularities.
“Wala kaming nakukuha (evidence) kasi ‘yung mga 5,000 na nagpadala ng litrato ng election returns kinumpara namin sa transparency server connection kagabi, walang mga pinagkakaiba, halos consistent,” Alvia told CNN Philippines’ Newsroom Ngayon on Tuesday.
[Translation: We have not received (evidence) yet because when we compared the 5,000 photos of election results sent to us to the transparency server, there was not much of a difference, it was mostly consistent.]
He noted that social media was flooded with complaints from netizens about their voting experiences, which included waiting in line for hours and faulty vote-counting machines. However, he said of the 1,800 machines that have reportedly encountered glitches, 500 were replaced while the rest eventually worked again.
Alvia urged the public to stay calm and wait for the results of the manual count of poll watchdogs.
“Medyo mahinahon dapat rin tayo,” he said. “Kung malaking malaki masyado ‘yung lamang siguro medyo tanggapin na rin natin na ‘yun ang resulta kasi wala pa naman tayong sapat na ebidensya o datos na nagsasabi na may dayaan talaga.”
[Translation: Let’s also be calm. If the gap remains big maybe we should accept the results because we still do not have evidence or data showing there was cheating].
