MANILA — A poll watchdog said Monday it has launched a new app that allows the public to report inaccuracies and irregularities in the transmission of electoral data during the May 9 polls.

Fernando Contreras Jr., national council member of the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections, told ANC this is part of their efforts "to aid the people have more confidence" in the country's automated election system.

He said the public could use the NAMFREL app as a bandwidth tester. They may also take pictures of election returns.

The Commission on Elections has changed the manner of transmitting electoral data from 3G to 4G.

"What we want to do is help Comelec assess the readiness in shifting from 3G to 4G," Contreras said.

The election returns contain "important information to verify and monitor the integrity of our votes," he said.

According to Namfrel, anyone could go to a voting center and test the signal using the app.

This is to ensure the proper transmission of election returns from vote-counting machines while using external modem or dongle, the group said.

Namfrel said the public could then take pictures of the upper and bottom parts of the election returns, which contain hash codes. The printed election returns are posted outside the voting precinct.

The group said the hash code could be likened to a fingerprint because there's only one system hash code for all vote-counting machines.

Namfrel will compare the hash code of election returns and the hash code found on Comelec's website.

There are 65.75 million registered voters for the May 9 national and local elections, excluding the 1.69 million overseas voters.

• Comelec says no more hours-long glitches in upcoming polls

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