Allaying doubts, PPCRV says transmission of election results in 2019 was faster than in 2022 polls

An official of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) allayed doubts surrounding the results of the recently concluded May 9 polls, saying that the transmission of poll results in 2019 was actually faster than this year.

The fast transmission of partial, unofficial election results has cast doubts among a minority group of voters. The so-called 68:32 ratio that made the rounds on social media also bugged voters.

This prompted the PPCRV to tap experts to check any discrepancy but did not find any.

"To put it in perspective, maybe in 2019, the big story was the seven-hour glitch but in reality data was coming in, we just weren't seeing it in our server while the other servers were seeing it. To be exact, the rate of the transmissions of 2019 were actually faster than 2022," PPCRV Chairperson Myla Villanueva said in an ANC interview on Monday, May 16.

Villanueva said the data has been made available to many universities in order for the public to understand the technical aspect of the transmission of results. Some experts were also tapped by the church-based poll watchdog to scrutinize the electronic transmission of poll results to "increase the credibility of the results."

"The data has been seen by many universities, I invited them in order to help students in the public understand because you know technical aspects are very difficult to explain," Villanueva said.

"To increase the credibility of the results, we opened the data to as many experts as possible who concluded the same thing that there was nothing unusual in the transmission," she added.

On doubts that vote-counting machines (VCM) can be hacked to influence the result of the election, Villanueva said it is actually an "inefficient" move, debunking some politicians' belief about the matter.

"Hacking a VCM is very inefficient. It would be the most inefficient way because again based on the many many facts and forensic, it's very easy to catch if something happens. It's too obvious a way to do it and I feel the people who still believe that, especially the politicians who accept that theory, are being taken for a ride," she said.