MAKATI, Philippines — The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) on Tuesday launched its command center for the unofficial parallel count of the first parliamentary election in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
PPCRV spokesperson and trustee Ana de Villa-Singson said the group already had around 3,000 volunteers and was continuing its recruitment to deploy voters assistance desks in more than 1,100 polling centers across BARMM.
"This is the very first parliamentary election in BARMM," de Villa-Singson said during the launch in Makati.
She said the election would also be the first automated election in the region, with voters using automated counting machines.
PPCRV will collect the physical Election Returns (ERs) produced by the machines after voting and compare them with the election data electronically transmitted to a PPCRV server in Makati, de Villa-Singson said.
The physical ERs will be collected from polling centers across BARMM and sent to the command center, while the electronically transmitted data will be forwarded from the PPCRV server for comparison.
The two sets of data should match, de Villa-Singson said, adding that the comparison would allow PPCRV to check whether the votes recorded in the physical ERs were the same as those transmitted electronically.
PPCRV will aggregate the transmitted data at its command center and display the results on large screens and on the organization's website, she said.
De Villa-Singson said that if transmission proceeds quickly, the unofficial parallel count could indicate the likely winners shortly after the polls close, citing Commission on Elections Chairman George Garcia.
PPCRV will also scan the physical ERs and compare them with the transmitted results as part of its audit.
