MANILA — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported only one variance in its random manual audit of the recently held Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections, with the overall results showing an accuracy rate of 99.99561 percent.
The audit covered 21 randomly selected clustered precincts across the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). The review is designed to compare manually counted ballots with the results generated and transmitted through the automated election system.
For votes for Parliamentary District Representatives, the audit recorded one variance out of 7,592 audited results. The Comelec reported 7,591 matching results, equivalent to an accuracy rate of 99.98683 percent for that category.
The audit found no variance in the other two categories. All 7,614 audited votes for Regional Parliamentary Political Parties matched, producing a 100 percent accuracy rate. The 12,006 audited votes for Parliamentary Sectoral Organizations likewise showed no difference between the manual count and the transmitted results.
Comelec Chairman George Garcia said the central purpose of the random manual audit was to determine whether the results transmitted from individual precincts accurately reflected the actual ballots counted manually.
Under election law, random manual audits are conducted on randomly selected clustered precincts as a mechanism for checking the accuracy and integrity of results produced by the automated election system.
The single variance does not mean that the entire BARMM election result was inaccurate. Rather, it represents one discrepancy identified within the specific sample examined during the manual audit. The reported overall accuracy rate was calculated from the audited results across the three parliamentary categories.
The findings provide a post-election comparison between automated results and physical ballot counts, but the audit is based on a sample rather than every clustered precinct in the region.
For the BARMM parliamentary elections, the audit therefore produced a near-total match between manually counted ballots and the corresponding automated results in the precincts selected for review.
The remaining issue is how the Comelec will document and address the single variance identified in the district-representative results as the election commission completes its post-election review and reporting.
