1. The True Results of the 2004 Philippine Presidential Elections By Roberto Verzola Author, “The True Results of the Philippine Presidential Election Based on the NAMFREL Tally” Kasarinlan (Vol. 19 No. 2, 2004)

2. Comparing Congress, NAMFREL tallies Congress tally: 32.3M votes counted GMA lead over FPJ: 3.48% (1.1M) Average GMA lead: 5.2 votes per precinct Average vote turnout: 149.0 votes per precinct NAMFREL tally: 26.4M votes counted GMA lead over FPJ: 2.58% (680,922) Average GMA lead: 3.1 votes per precinct Average vote turnout: 145.2 votes per precinct

3. Can we compare the percentages? ● Yes, we can! ● Exit polls and surveys have different numbers of respondents (1,500 to 5,000), but their percentage results can all be compared to the final results. ● The NAMFREL database can be seen as an exit poll with more respondents (26.4 million). ● The Congress canvass of COCs and the NAMFREL tally are based on the same ERs.

4. ERs nearer the truth than COCs ● 216,500+ election returns (ERs) ● Went thru few hands (precinct level only) ● Open tally by teachers and volunteers more credible ● Unofficial results are less important ● Only 177 Certificates of Canvass ● Went thru precinct, municipal, then provincial canvassers ● COMELEC provincial officials less credible ● Official results are the cheaters’ real targets

5. Finding #1: Huge discrepancies exist between the Congress and NAMFREL tallies

6. Definition of GMA % Margin GMA Lead -------------------- Total votes or GMA votes – FPJ votes ----------------------------------------------- GMA + FPJ + Lacson + Roco + V’nueva

7. Definition of Discrepancy the percentage of the total votes (GMA+FPJ+Lacson+Roco+Villanueva) that were not correctly counted

11. Conclusion #1: In Mindanao alone, the discrepancy is at least 600,000 votes in favor of GMA; in Ilocos and C.Visayas alone, the discrepancy in vote turnout is around 463,000 votes.

12. Finding #2: Five million votes were not tallied: four million in pro-FPJ areas, only one million in pro-GMA areas

22. Conclusion #2 The number of FPJ votes was grossly understated; GMA’s 681,000 lead over FPJ was overstated

23. Can we still know the truth? Yes, we can. We must reinterpret the NAMFREL database as an exit poll of 26.4 million respondents, and correct the disproportional representation of regions.

24. A word about sample sizes ● Pollsters’ rule: a random sample size of 2,500 gives an estimate (of, say, a candidate’s share of the votes) with a 3% error margin at a 99.7% confidence level. ● To reduce the error margin, square the desired reduction to get the required increase in sample size. For example: – To reduce the error margin by 3 (i.e., from 3% to 1%), increase the sample size 9 times (i.e., from 2,500 to 22,500) – To reduce the error margin by 100 (i.e., from 3% to 0.03%), increase the sample size 10,000 times (i.e., to 25 million) ● The NAMFREL database is a sample size of 26.4 million

27. Conclusion #3 ● It was a very close contest. ● Based on NAMFREL's database, either candidate could have won: GMA by at most 156,000 or FPJ by at most 84,000. ● These results suggest that to give GMA a 1.1 million lead, her party had to cheat by 1 to 1.2 million votes.

28. Thank you Roberto Verzola Philippine Greens rverzola@gn.apc.org 0919-608-7073