The ruling upheld the results of the manual count, which contradicted the machine count. But the real story here is that the much-touted automated count is, indeed, fallible. If the automated count can fail in a small town, it can fail elsewhere. This is true only if we compare the machine results with the random manual counts. More important, the overturn of the Rosales results casts unwanted doubt on the reliability of machine counts.

Source: Philippine Star February 19, 2026 02:13 UTC