PPCRV to show results of local poll races for the first time
At A Glance
- The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), a church-based movement that observes the conduct of Philippine elections, will for the first time show unofficial poll results involving local candidates and party-lists.
The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), a church-based movement that observes the conduct of Philippine elections, will for the first time show unofficial poll results involving local candidates and party-lists.
PPCRV, a non-partisan group that for the past three decades has been conducting parallel counting of elections, said Monday, May 5, that it will be able to show results of local candidates thanks to the technological innovation initiated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Previously, PPCRV had to encode the data of each of the election returns. But “thanks to the QR code” generated for each of them by the poll body, PPCRV won't have to do this anymore, said PPCRV Spokesperson Ma. Ana de Villa-Singson.
“This year, we will not only be showing national [candidates]. We will also be auditing down to local positions… also the party-lists,” Singson said.
Local positions refer to the mayoral races.
“So essentially, we're auditing now all the contested positions in the ballot,” she added.
She also said they expect faster transmission of results this time.
Around 400,000 individuals will also volunteer to be part of the movement, so all parts of the country are monitored and covered.
Also on Monday or exactly a week prior to the May 12 election, the PPCRV launched their command center located at the PLDT building in Sampaloc, Manila.
“This facility will serve as the nerve center of PPCRV’s election operations... It's equipped with servers, network infrastructure, enhanced connectivity, mobile devices and tools for real time data gathering and transmission audits,” PLDT Senior Vice President Blums Pineda.
“It also supports the conduct of an unofficial parallel account and enables PPCRV to coordinate the work of over 400,000 volunteers across the country," he added.
In 2022, PPRCV’s command center was at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), also in Sampaloc.
PLDT will provide mobile phones and Internet services for PPCRV, while AMA Education System will provide technical support.
Accredited by Comelec, PPCRV audits election results to ensure honest and fair conduct of elections.
It will do so through cross-checking the printed results from the vote counting machines and the results scanned through QR codes, as well as the printed results and the results on the transparency servers.
“In the case of discrepancies, a senior panel will recheck and elevate if truly anomalous,” PPRCV said.