MANILA, Philippines – Exactly a month after the midterm elections, an independent committee has not finished auditing election results in nearly a fourth of selected precincts, poll chief Sixto Brillantes Jr said Thursday, June 13.

Brillantes said the random manual audit (RMA) committee has finished auditing election results in 160 to 170 selected precincts. The committee earlier chose 234 precincts, including a precinct in Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

The audited precincts comprise up to 72.6% of the total.

Brillantes, however, said partial results show that precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines have 99.9% accuracy.

“It says that the PCOS machine is okay, as in fact it has always been okay. Only some of those who have doubts have been saying it is not okay. Everything has been okay all the while,” Brillantes explained. (Watch video below.)

Required under the Automated Election Law, the RMA is done by manually counting the votes and comparing these with the PCOS tally.

Reports on audit discrepancies had surfaced last month, but Brillantes quelled fears over this. 

The Comelec, after all, allows a certain number of discrepancies to still call the PCOS count accurate. Comelec Resolution No. 9595, which covers the RMA, allows a margin of 10 votes per candidate per position “in the event of discrepancy.”

Brillantes on Thursday couldn’t recall exact figures on precincts that exceeded 10 discrepancies.  

The RMA committee will finalize the audit report soon, Brillantes said. The Comelec earlier said the report is due May 13. – Rappler.com