The Commission on Elections (Comelec),
through
Resolution no. 9538, reappointed the members of the 2010 Random
Manual Audit Committee (RMAC) to carry out the random manual audit
for the 2013 automated elections:
|
1. |
Ambassador
Henrietta T. de Villa, PPCRV Chair, and Member, Comelec
Advisory Council (CAC), as Chair; |
|
2. |
Ms. Agnes T.
Carreon, Officer-in-Charge, Internal Audit Office, Comelec,
as member; and |
|
3. |
Ms. Carmelita N.
Ericta, Administrator, National Statistics Office (NSO), as
Member. |
The Commission on Audit (COA) was originally named a member of the
2010 random manual audit committee, until COA withdrew their
membership from the said auditing committee less than two months
before the May 2010 elections.
The Random Manual Audit is an integrity feature in the 2007
Automated Election Law to check the accuracy of the automated
election system. Section 29 of Republic Act 9369 -- the amended
Philippine Election Automation Law -- provided for the use of the
Random Manual Audit (RMA): “Where the AES (Automated Election
System) is used, there shall be a random manual audit in one
precinct per congressional district randomly chosen by the
Commission in each province and city. Any difference between the
automated and manual count will result in the determination
of root cause and initiate a manual count for those precincts
affected by the computer or procedural error."
There were many issues raised against the RMA for the 2010
elections, including: late release of general instructions for the
RMA (10 days before election day); delay or non-conduct of RMA in
selected precincts; RMA report not specifying which precincts were
audited and how accuracy rate per region was arrived at. Local and
foreign academic, professional, election monitoring and IT
organizations also raised issues with the methodology used by the
RMAC as well as the variance in the machine vs. manual count deemed
acceptable by the committee.
The Comelec resolution was signed on October 9, 2012, a day before
the scheduled Comelec hearing of Namfrel's petition for
accreditation for the 2013 elections. Namfrel is petitioning the
Comelec to allow it to officially assist the Commission as
accredited citizens' arm in the conduct of the Random Manual Audit,
on the strength of its decades of experience in conducting parallel
vote counts, and the qualifications of its members and
officers
that include some of the country's top accounting, management, and
IT experts.
(Various sources) |
