The matching rate of the election returns (ERs) physically validated by the church-based poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) remains high, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) said on Sunday, May 15.

“The matching rate remains at a high of 98.40 percent,” said Comelec Acting Spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco during a press briefing.

The lawyer learned from the PPCRV that it has encoded 30,727 ERs.

“Out of that we have a 30,235 election returns na 100 percent match doon sa transmitted election returns (that has 100 match with the transmitted ERs),” the spokesperson said.

However, Laudiangco said the PPCRV found that “240 of those that I have mentioned ay nagkaroon ng variants or what they call mismatches.”

“It accounts for 1.61 percent,” the spokesperson noted.

Laudiangco said that the PPCRV has already cited that the causes of the mismatches have been human error: “the volunteers cannot read the numbers clearly” and “sometimes their volunteers make mistakes in reading the numbers because they are already tired.”

“Hindi po matawaran ang paglilingkod ng volunteers ng PPCRV. Volunteers po sila. (We cannot place a value for their service. They are volunteers.) They are receiving no payment,” he pointed out.

Despite this, Laudiangco said the Comelec “expect that the 240 mismatches will be resolved the soonest .”

“Pero nothing to worry about because the PPCRV itself made a statement, one , if ever there is a variance, this would not affect the results of the election contest specifically the national positions...Secondly, the mismatch is now undergoing validation,” he said.