(UPDATE) Angry citizens took to social media early Tuesday to bewail the seven-hour gap between the first two transmissions of unofficial results that brought midterm poll tallies from .4 to 90 percent completion.
#HalalanDayaan2019 raged for hours on Twitter, garnering at least 21,000 tweets as of 5 a.m. Tuesday after it was first used around 10 p.m. Monday, four hours into the gap in the sending of partial, unofficial results by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
Many of the comments expressed dismay at the loss of opposition candidates. Others, many of whom are young voters, criticized the elections.
Arjolyn De La Cruz, an incoming Political Science freshman at the University of the Philippines Visayas, linked the results to the failure of voting machines and allegations of pre-shaded ballots earlier in the day.
After releasing what represented .4 percent of election returns to media organizations, political parties, and the citizens' poll count arm 6:15 p.m. Monday, nothing much was heard about the Comelec's transmission operations at Pope Pius in Manila where citizen's arm Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting held parallel count.
Screencaptured from halalanresults.abs-cbn.com
Citing problems with its transparency server, Comelec later said an application error caused the delay in unofficial tallies.
The next set of results came in past 1 a.m. Tuesday. The new results boosted the vote counts for senatorial candidates Cynthia Villar and Grace Poe to 23.64 million and 20.73 million, respectively. They were also leaders in the 6:15 p.m. results.
Screencaptured from halalanresults.abs-cbn.com
Citizens were antsy as Monday evening dragged on without fresh results, prompting suspicions and accusations of irregularity or cheating in the elections, mostly declared on social media.
These same sentiments were not unfamiliar as cheating allegations surfaced when political newcomer Leni Robredo overtook dictator Ferdinand Marcos' son Bongbong in results that trickled afternoon to late evening of May 9, 2016's closely contested vice presidential race.
Screen recording of 2016 vice presidential race transmission progress
The hashtag #HalalanDayaan2019 is an apparent spinoff of #Halalan2019, #HalalanResults, and #HalalanAberya being used by ABS-CBN News.
-- With research from James Amante, Hermie Rivera
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