More than 47,000 physical election returns encoded by the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) as of Sunday afternoon, May 15, produced a 98.59 percent match.

The Catholic church-based poll watchdog reported on Monday, May 16, that of the 47,112 physical elections returns (ERs) they have encoded as of 5 p.m. Sunday, 46,447 matched the digitally transmitted election results.

The difference between these figures are accounted for ERs that are not yet compared with the digital results, ERs that have no corresponding electronically-transmitted copies, and ERs that are up for revalidation.

It was disclosed that the ERs for revalidation grew to 355.

Sixteen poll results are not yet compared with the digital results. These will be compared together with the next batch of matching.

There are also 294 ERs that had no corresponding digital ERs. According to Atty. Van Dela Cruz, these could be due to the vote-counting machines that were not able to transmit electronic poll results.

"But we do have a copy of the pre-transmission printed physical election return, so that accounts to 294," Dela Cruz said during a press briefing at the PPCRV command center.

According to PPCRV Co-IT Director William Yu, the number of ERs for revalidation is "not surprising."

Yu said as they encode more ERs, it is possible to record more ERs for revalidation.

"As we encode more returns, we expect more errors to come. So hindi po (it's not) surprising na dumadagdag yung (that the) numbers (are increasing)," Yu said.

"So clearly there will always be some of those that will happen. Hindi naman siya (It is not) unusual, except that of course we're trying to work on those now, so parang hindi na kami naghihintay sa dulo (so now we are not waiting for the end) before we process that. We are already starting..." Yu added.

He said that historically, the revalidation takes place after but due to the interest of the public, they are now working on it.

"After we do the activity, we will publish the breakdown," he said.

As of Monday, the PPCRV has received 66,574 physical poll returns of the 107,785. This translates to 61.77 percent of the total expected returns to come in from polling precincts nationwide.

Yu also said that they will continue to encode and process the ERs as long as they receive the physical copies.

"The guidance is as long as we have ERs coming and we have the resources, we will encode. We will finish what we can finish," he said.