Poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to explain why there are more ballots cast than the actual number of voters in various precincts, such as in Zamboanga and Dumaguete cities.
Comelec asked: Explain why there were more ballots than voters in some precincts
At A Glance
- Poll watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) has asked the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to explain why there are more ballots cast than the actual number of voters in various precincts, such as in Zamboanga and Dumaguete cities.
PPCRV Spokesperson Ana de Villa-Singson said Thursday, May 15, that the group already sought clarification from Comelec.
Singson said the Comelec tagged it as "mislabeling" when its publicly available election returns (ERs) data showed that there were more ballots cast in one precinct than the actual number of voters.
"They said it was mislabeled... Now, apparently, the data that was pointed for that particular cell was not the data supposed to be for that cell," Singson said in a press conference, citing Comelec's explanation.
In one of the examples she showed to the media, ER results on Comelec's website posted on May 12 indicated that there were 919 ballots cast in a clustered precinct in Lamisahan, Zamboanga City, although there were only 768 voters there.
However, as of May 15, the "mislabeling" was already rectified and the number of voters already matched the number of ballots cast.
PPCRV seemed to be not yet satisfied with Comelec's response and said that they "want to understand a little bit more about that misleading piece".
"We're doing this so that there can be no cloud of doubt on on our elections," she said.
“We are not throwing any accusations. We are simply requesting a more in-depth explanation," she added.