Voting has concluded, but the counting of the election returns is still ongoing. However, major TV stations have been airing the partial, unofficial election returns to help the public keep up with the counting. As for GMA, they have been getting their tally from the COMELEC-GMA Mirror Server, as reflected on their official website.
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In the morning of May 10th, netizens who are monitoring the changes in the tally were confused and worried over the discrepancies in vice presidential bet Chiz Escudero’s numbers. As of May 10th, 4:40 AM, Chiz’s tally was at 4,479,913 votes. But as of 5:30 AM, his tally was at 4,449,038, there’s a reduction from the previous tally around an hour before.
This caused some netizens to call for COMELEC’s attention, with others even throwing accusations of cheating.
However, GMA has issued an apology at around noon, explaining how the numbers were just caused by a typographical error and how the 4,449,038 votes as of 5:30 AM is supposed to be typed as 4,499,038.
Moreover, the tally is unofficial. During the counting, election returns have to be double-counted, so when checked for the second time, the correct count will then make its way to the next tally update, hence the sometimes unavoidable incident of the figure in the next tally being lower than the figure in the tally before it.
Before throwing any allegations of cheating, which is a serious election offense, the accuser should substantiate the claim first. The COMELEC is doing their best to have a clean and credible election this year. If there are complaints of potential cheating made on May 9th, we would hear about them from COMELEC itself.
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