MANILA (Updated 2:15 p.m.) -- Results of the May 10 polls were 99.6 percent accurate, according to the report of the technical working group that conducted the random manual audit.

The findings were announced at a press conference Thursday, barely three months after the successful run of the first automated elections in the Philippines in May.

Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting chair Henrietta de Villa, who heads the team, said out of the 1,145 clustered precincts only three have notable discrepancies.

She said the 99.6 percent accuracy rate passed the 99 percent benchmark set by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

The manual audit was conducted immediately after the polling centers closed at 7 p.m. on May 10 on pre-selected precincts per congressional districts.

Florante Varona of the National Statistics Office said the 0.4 percent variance is “quite small” as it only represents 2,174 votes out of the 540,942 total votes in the 1,145 clustered precincts.

Comelec Chairman Jose Melo was pleased with the report, which he said probes the accuracy and reliability of the automated polls.

He said that most of the variances noted were caused by numerical or clerical errors of the Board of Election Inspectors.

“Automation would always be here, as long as we have the money we will automate,” Melo said.

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal said in a television interview Tuesday that the results of the manual audit validate the previous statement of the commission that there was no massive and organized automated cheating.

Only the positions for president and vice president were subjected to manual audit in the national level, while the positions for mayor, governor and congressmen were audited in the local level.

The random audit was conducted to check the credibility of the automated elections.(Sunnex)