Intelligence Report – Election Watch 2016 – BBM vs LENI: What Happened While You Were Sleeping

It’s been a crazy night and the morning has pushed mixed emotions. From elation to condemnation.

image from ABS-CBN

I think it is important regardless of your candidate to understand what happened in the wee hours of the morning. Especially before we go into the irrational “hoy, recount” mentality (for both sides).

Yes, BBM had a 900,000 vote lead late into the evening of May 9, that cannot be denied. But it is important to look at the data. I was awake for most of the hours before dawn. And the rise of LENI WAS NOT sudden.

Before the elections started, BBM and LENI were at a statistical tie in the surveys (usually stating -+1 error of margin). Based on the data, BBM has had a strong hold in Luzon and LENI has had Visayas, with both of them tied in Mindanao (SEE: last week’s survey data).

At around midnight last night, it was Luzon (usually attributed to the fact that signal strength and infrastructure was more consistent in the North) that had transmitted almost 90%-100% of the unofficial election results. Putting that into consideration with the existing surveys (which actually have been quite accurate on the Presidential and Vice-Presidential levels), it makes sense BBM had a 1m vote lead.

Was it a huge lead? In my opinion, no. Only 40-50% of the unofficial election results were transmitted (with only about 20-25% of total voters accounted for). It was too early to say. Analysts from Rappler, as early 11pm were citing, with a race this close, at VP-level 97% would have to be transmitted to say with minor confidence that someone was a winner (statistically)

So, if you went to sleep thinking it was a landslide victory. You probably weren’t looking at the data and listening to the political analysts.

As the lead tightened (gradually), from 500,000 votes to 5,000 votes, the data geeks started crunching numbers. The incoming votes from Visayas (based on survey histories LENI territory) and Mindanao started shifting the tide.

Mark Ruiz, from Hapinoy, made an interesting Google Doc tracking the trend based on the partial data coming in . Using predictions based on the votes coming in, they (a few other geeks got in on the stats) made a few estimates of how close the possible battle based on data was.

As unofficial election results came in, the predicted trends were being confirmed (the sheet is being updated based on the data released).

Does this mean LENI has already won the battle? NO. Especially with 2 million votes not yet accounted for. As I mentioned earlier, Rappler’s analysts have pointed out that it will most probably be neck in neck until 97%.  Based on the official transparency server, only 94.70% of the election returns have been received.

A majority of the overseas absentee votes have still not been transmitted. Marcos and Cayetano have both been strong in that category because of their distance from the existing administration.

Also official canvassing may adjust votes because of invalidation, failure of election, etc.

At this point, IT IS ANYONE’S GAME.

So whoever your candidate is #keepcalmoncarreon

P.S. – please stop spreading satire sites, conspiracy theories and unconfirmed “cheating” posts. They will not affect the outcome of the results (votes have already been cast) and simply create more division when we should start building together as a nation. We are better than this. The Philippines deserves better. If there are valid complaints, please course them through the proper channels and fight for them in those channels.