MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) admitted that a technical issue slowed down the partial unofficial count on the results of the 2019 national elections.
The STAR quotes Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez as saying the Comelec's transprency server, which is also supposed to send the election data to media partners, is working and has received 80% of polling results. He said the problem is not with transmission to the server, but in sending the data from the transparency server to media computers linked to it.
Related Stories
The Comelec transparency server released partial unofficial results at around 6:15 p.m., which showed 0.38% of the results at the national level. It has not issued an update as of writing time.
The transparency server was supposed to send unofficial vote counts to media groups and watchdogs in intervals of 10 to 15 minutes.
As of 11:09 p.m., the Comelec website indicated that 86.69% of election returns have been transmitted to the poll body.
Comelec Spokesperson James Jimenez says the problem is not with the transmission but with the sending of the data from the transparency server to the media partners, PPCRV. The data stored in the transparency server has reached 80 percent. | @EZMacairan pic.twitter.com/FsDVfCDtDX
— The Philippine Star (@PhilippineStar) May 13, 2019
Voting closed at 6 p.m. in most parts of the country after opening at 6 a.m. The vote counting machines were expected to transmit the vote counts to the transparency server and to the centrel server of the Comelec after polls close.
Makabayan bloc seeks explanation
Lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc called on the poll body to explain the lack of quick count updates on its transparency server.
Rep. Sarah Elago (Kabataan Party-list) pointed out that in the two previous elections, the results were released real time.
"Di tulad ng 2013, 2016 [elections] na halos real-time ito. 71% na ngayon ang nabato sa main server pero 0.38% pa lang ang nasa transparency server," Elago tweeted at 8:58 p.m.
Rep. Antonio Tinio (ACT Teachers Party-list) shared the same sentiments, pointing out that the Comelec provided almost real time updates in the 2013 and 2016 automated elections.
"One of the touted benefits of automation is supposed to be the quick and transparent counting of votes. This is beginning to feel like a throwback to the pre-automation era," Tinio said on Facebook.