The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has distanced itself from the recent vote count glitch for the senatorial race that appeared on the COMELEC media server on early Tuesday, May 13.
This came after netizens and media outlets noticed a sudden drop in the vote count for Senator Christopher "Bong" Go—from 26,021,004 votes as of 1:44 a.m., down to 21,699,929 votes at an earlier timestamp of 12:59 a.m.
The following candidates also experienced a sudden drop in numbers. However, despite the discrepancy, the standings of the senatorial candidates in the so-called "Magic 12" remained unchanged.
In an exclusive interview, COMELEC Chairperson George Garcia explained that the poll body uses its own server, which is separate from the one accessed by the media.
"As far as the COMELEC is concerned, may sarili kaming server, ang media kasama ang KBP at iba pang media entities may sariling server din, ang PPCRV, ang NAMFREL, ang majority party at ang minority party, may kaniya-kaniya po tayong servers. Kung ano yung pinapadala sa amin, ganun din ang pinapadala sa inyo," Garcia explained.
He also clarified that COMELEC is not allowed to compute the total number of votes.
"Kami ay walang suma-total dahil ang nakikita lang namin sa aming server ay kung ilan lang ang napadalang election returns sa iba't ibang parte ng ating bansa," Garcia said.
Garcia added that their server does not receive Certificates of Proclamation from the municipal to the provincial level. Instead, they receive data directly from the source—election returns—which he emphasized is more accurate.
"Yung mga nata-transmit sa provincial ay nanggagaling sa municipal canvassing. Ang lahat ng tinatanggap kagabi ay galing mismo sa mga presinto," he said.
Garcia said the server shown to the media is partial and unofficial, which is why they do not release total vote counts or candidate rankings.
"Kayo [media] po ang makakapag-compute, hindi kami pwedeng mag-compute," said the COMELEC chair.
He advised the public to cross-check the results shown by other servers with COMELEC’s precinct-level data.
Garcia also shared that as of 11:45 p.m. the night before, they were only waiting for the remaining 17,000 precincts to complete the 100% total of 94,000 precincts.
As of 7:41 a.m., the COMELEC media server had received 80.27% of the total votes nationwide.
