Pasay City: The law-mandated Random Manual Audit (RMA) for the May 12 midterm elections is set to start on Wednesday in Pasay City, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced on Monday. The auditing process, which involves the manual examination of ballots to validate the results from vote-counting machines (VCM), will take place at the Citadines Bay City Manila and cover 762 clustered precincts and online voting posts.

According to Philippines News Agency, Dir. Abigail Claire Llacuna of the Comelec Education and Information Department, who is also part of the technical working group for the RMA, stated that they aim to complete the audit within 45 days. The RMA will examine votes for senator, party-list group, congressional representative, and mayoral positions.

The RMA is conducted in accordance with Section 29 of the Automated Election System (AES) Act, which mandates a random manual audit in one precinct per congressional district selected by the Commission in each province and city where the AES is utilized.

In addition to the Comelec, the RMA Committee includes representatives from the Department of Education, Philippine Statistics Authority, Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting, National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections, Legal Network for Truthful Elections, and the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Comelec Chairperson George Garcia previously noted that since the 2010 elections, the RMA has achieved 99.9 percent accuracy rates between manual and automated counting results.