Fast poll results transmission due to low data: PPCRV

MANILA – The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) on Thursday said the fast transmission of the outcome of the partial and unofficial results of the May 9 elections was due to low required data and not to the alleged election irregularities.

“Yung data na tina-transmit natin hindi naman yan Netflix video na napakalaki, HD [high-definition] pa. Ano lang yan, text data about tallies and votes, and tatlong beses lang siya sini-send per machine (The data that we transmit is not as huge as a Netflix video that is HD. That is just text data about tallies and votes being sent just three times per machine),” PPCRV Co-IT Director William Yu explained in a radio interview.

Yu said during the 2019 midterm elections, it took seven hours to get the results because the data transmitted from the vote-counting machines (VCMs) to the transparency server was stuck to the file transfer module.

“Only until seven hours later that we got the results. So the people’s perception is that they only got it seven hours later. But we know that the data is there in the transparency server. We just can’t get it or display it yet,” he added.

Yu even noted that the results of the 2022 national and local elections came in a little bit slower compared to the 2019 polls.

“We saw that medyo mas mabagal sa (quite slower at the) start. 2022 is actually slower. Fewer results came in at the first moment of opening versus 2019,” he said.

When asked if an automated election is safer compared to manual, Yu said a piece of technology is neither good nor bad depending on its usage.

“Any system will encounter problems whether automated or manual. There are benefits to an automated system simply because may (there are) audit logs. Maraming (Lots of) logs,” he said.

He said if someone attempts to change the results, they have to change all the results simultaneously acquired by all the data recipients.

“So, the auditability is there. We like that kasi pwede kaming mag-check (because we can check). If we don’t trust the transparency server, i-check mo si (check the central) central. That’s what we’re doing here. If you don’t trust the transmission, use the paper,” he added.

Yu also refuted claims that the results are improbable because it follows a certain pattern, saying the allegation is not new to them and just another product of fake news.

“In trying to find more visual ways of representing it, we invited the academic community, from Ateneo, from UST (University of Santo Tomas), La Salle, and UP (University of the Philippines) to say why don’t you look at the data and see for yourselves,” he said.

Lawyer Vann Dela Cruz, PPCRV Legal Affairs Director and spokesperson, on Wednesday said they have not found any irregularity in the system yet.