THE random manual audit (RMA) is a process undertaken as mandated by the Election Automation Law, Republic Act (RA) 8436 as amended by RA 9369, to determine the correctness and accuracy of the automated vote count.

To implement the provision of the law, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) promulgated Resolution 10774 on March 23, 2022 amending Resolution 10738 promulgated on Dec. 9, 2021, entitled “In the Matter of the General Instructions for the Conduct of the Random Manual Audit (RMA) for the [May 9, 2022] Automated Synchronized National and Local Elections and Subsequent Elections Thereafter.”

In October 2021, the Comelec convened the RMA committee (RMAC) composed of representatives from the Comelec, the Philippine Statistics Authority, and a coalition of civil society organizations which includes the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), the Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente), the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (Picpa), the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (Isaca), and the Philippine Society of Public Health Professionals (PSPHP) for the purpose of conducting the RMA.

Among the teams organized for the conduct of the RMA are:

1. The RMA team (RMAT) shall be composed of a chairman, a secretary and a third member. The RMAT is tasked to read, count and tally the votes indicated in the ballot.

2. The RMA verification team (RMA-VT) shall review and verify the findings of the RMAT.

As provided by Resolution 10774, “the actual number of precincts to be selected in a legislative district shall be determined by proportional allocation, that is, based on the number of clustered precincts a legislative district has in proportion to that of all the other legislative districts in the country.”

To randomly select the clustered precincts, software developed by the PSA was used. Selection of the clustered precincts was done the day after the elections, or on May 10, 2022 in accordance with Resolution 10774. A total of 757 clustered precincts were selected in the presence of media and observers.

Upon receipt of a ballot box, the RMAT shall check if the integrity of the ballot box and the seals attached to it have been maintained. The RMAT shall take an inventory of the contents of the ballot box. Any discrepancy or missing item shall be recorded in the RMA minutes. The copy of the (printed) Election Returns contained in a sealed envelope shall be turned over to the RMA-VT, who shall disclose to the RMAT only the number of valid ballots reflected in the election returns.

The secretary shall also retrieve the valid ballots and perform a physical count and ensure if it matches the valid ballot count reflected in the election returns. Any discrepancy shall be resolved in accordance with Resolution 10774.

The audit covers the positions of president, vice president, senator, member of the House of Representatives, mayor and party-list.

The chairman shall first inspect the ballot for adequately shaded ovals in all positions covered by the audit and any overvote, undervote, or partially shaded oval and shall form a category for each.

The reading of the votes shall first proceed with ballots with adequately shaded ovals with the chairman proceeding to read the position covered by the audit, the number assigned to the candidate, and the name of the candidate. The secretary and third member shall record the votes using tara marks on the audit return and the tally board, respectively.

For ballots with over-voted positions, such over-votes for the affected position shall likewise be recorded. No vote shall be credited to any candidate in the over-voted position. Only the votes in the other positions not over-voted shall be recorded as appropriate.

For ballots with under-voted position, the votes for candidates shall be recorded. The under-votes shall likewise be recorded, that is, if for example, a voter voted for only one candidate in a position with 12 seats, 11 under-votes shall be recorded.

For partially shaded ovals, the chairman shall make a determination whether the shade shall be counted as a vote or not following specific guidelines provided by the RMAC. The secretary and third member shall record such as the case may be.

After completing the reading of the ballots, the secretary and third member shall count the votes. The secretary and third member shall then compare the results of their counts. If there is a discrepancy, such discrepancy shall be resolved by reviewing the recording of the votes.

The resulting counts of the vote in the audit return shall be compared with the results of the vote counts for the positions covered by the audit reflected in the election return. A discrepancy will lead to a review of the manual count. If the discrepancy is not resolved, the RMAT will turn to the VVPATs and count the votes for the positions where the discrepancy is found. If still the discrepancy is not resolved, such fact shall be recorded in the RMA minutes, and the ballot box referred to the technical evaluation committee for root cause determination.

The results of the RMA shall in no way delay the proclamation of the winning candidates.

While the RMA is ongoing, an online petition has been launched via https://www.change.org/p/the-truthpetition-implores-the-comelec-toopen-750-randomly-selected-ballotboxes-for-manual-count-and-auditof-sd-cards-local-petitioners-gather10-000-signatures-and-file-directlyat-their-local-comelec-we-aim-togather-2-million-by-jun-30-2022 “to open the ballot boxes and count manually the ballots from 750 chosen precincts using the tambiolo system and to allow independent IT professionals to conduct an audit of the SD cards of the chosen 750 precincts.” The online petition challenges the RMA process with claims, among others, that the clustered precincts covered were pre-selected.