Media and election watchdogs reported that election day on May 12 was rife with various anomalies, reports of machine failures, and violence.

As soon as the precincts opened, complaints poured in regarding “inconsistencies” with the Miru machines. Many reported that their ballots were rejected due to “overvoting” despite them being certain having voted the correct number of candidates and party-list groups. Permanent markers having excessively thick ink also became an issue.

Hundreds of machines were reported to have malfunctioned, especially in Cebu and Batangas. In Butuan City, the wrong ballots were sent, while some ballots were reportedly pre-shaded in Misamis Occidental and Sultan Kudarat.

Kontra Daya reported that more than 50% of the complaints they received were related to malfunctioning machines, followed by illegal campaigning, vote buying, and missing names from voter lists. On election day itself, rampant Red-tagging and fake news dissemination were still reported.

Kontra Daya called on holding the Comelec accountable for these anomalies, along with its use of a non-audited version of the vote counting machines’ software.

“Addressing voting process problems is not the responsibility of the voters,” according to Kontra Daya. While doubts about the machines and the credibility of the voting process persist, Comelec should conduct a manual count of the votes, the group said.

The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) also reported receiving a large number of complaints related to overvoting and “mismatch” or discrepancies between the votes cast and those reflected in the machine-generated receipts. The PPCRV admitted that only this election raised such types of complaints. They said it would be impossible to know whether the votes on the ballots match those registered by the machine without conducting a manual count.

Meanwhile, the PPCRV reported anomalies in Comelec’s transmission of counting results. At 8 p.m. on election day, the group complained that they did not receive the electoral transmissions simultaneously. They said that the 15% they received contained only headers and not the actual votes. The counting became even more questionable when Comelec suddenly deducted 5 million votes from 15,000 precincts, allegedly because these votes were counted twice.

The PPCRV called on Comelec to be “transparent” and explain this anomaly. As of today, only 79.9% of the results are visible to the PPCRV, despite Comelec’s claim having already finished counting 98% of the votes.

From January to April, 26 incidents of election-related violence had already been reported. On the eve and the day of the election itself, rampant shootings and armed attacks resulting in 16 deaths, were reported. Serious incidents were reported in Basilan, Negros Occidental, Lanao del Sur and Bohol.

There were also many incidents of gun ban violations, attempted ambushes, and fistfights in Abra, Cebu, Maguindanao del Sur, and Eastern Samar. In Pualas, Lanao del Sur, more than 80 men were arrested for brawling in front of Pualas National High School, where the voting was taking place.