13 May Comelec and PPCRV Counting Inconsistencies – Affected Senatorial Candidates Joined the Issue
Image Source | newsinfo.inquirer.net
The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and Commission on Elections (Comelec) both had their tally of votes recorded but the figures are not the same.
After yesterday’s revelation of an IT expert on a breach that happened in the Comelec transparency server, senatorial bets joined the discussion of a possible vote shaving.
Top of the list is independent senatorial candidate Francis Tolentino whose camp demanded an accurate probe of the disparities of the votes coming off from Davao del Sur, Laguna, and Rizal.
It was shown that PPCRV’s transparency server showed 435,471 votes yet Comelec registered only 101,333 votes. That’s a 334,138 difference in Davao Del Sur alone! However, Davao Del Sur provincial board of canvassers said they have submitted their CoCs four times.
In Misamis, Juan Miguel Zubiri, a senatorial bet from Mindanao had 100,000 votes missing in the count.
The breach has not been denied by Smartmatic but their explanation of why the unauthorized act being done violating the protocol is not convincing and can only provoke the already heated argument of the alleged vote shaving.
“It is true that someone from Smartmatic corrected a script—from ‘?’ to ‘ñ’,” Bautista said, but assured the public the “tweaking” would not “affect the integrity of the numbers.”
“He confirmed that the data has ‘?’ In the name of a candidate. He then made the necessary modification to the script and corrected the ‘?’ to an ‘ñ’ right away,” Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said, referring to Marlon Garcia, project director of Smartmatic.
he also added, “Several candidates had names with ‘ñ’. So it would look funny for names such as Señeres and Napeñas have question marks. It was thought that it would be cleaner if changes were to be made.”
“There is no cheating whatsoever,” Bautista protecting the honesty of the act. But Comelec Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said, “if you ask me, had I been informed ahead, I would have said no. Now, it just added more fuel to (the controversy over the elections).”
The cosmetic change is not necessary at all to evade the provoking that it might produce, which as of today it already did.
“It is not necessary, but Garcia saw that there was something wrong in it, so in good faith, he cosmetically changed it,” Ellie Moreno said, project director of Smartmatic.
“The allegations regarding Palace involvement are untrue and unfounded,” Herminio Coloma Jr., the Communications Secretary said, referring to the posts that have been scattered throughout the online community about the alleged sinister involvement of the Palace in the sudden surge of votes for the Liberal Party’s (LP) vice presidential bet Leni Robredo overtaking vice presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr. in the wee hours of May 10.
The camp of Robredo asked the Marcos’ camp for a substantial support in their claims about the manufacturing of election results thrown to them.
“What is clear to us is that we didn’t do anything wrong. We’re not a party in any of these cases. Whatever are their accusations, they need to substantiate them,” Robredo said.
She also added, “It’s unfair that they are saying that there are cheating claims, there is fraud but they don’t have any evidence or basis. They’re just conditioning the minds of the people.”
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