The election watchdog Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting ( PPCRV) downplayed on Monday the possible effect on the midterm elections of the "400 to 600" vote counting machines that were initially reported to have malfunctioned.

In an interview, PPCRV executive director Maribel Buenaobra said compared to the estimated 85,000 VCMs deployed nationwide, the number of those which malfunctioned was just minimal.

"That's just about less than one percent. That's .004 (percent). That's not alarming," she said.

She recalled that in the 2016 national and local elections where there were about 92,000 clustered precincts, the Commission on Elections ( Comelec) reported that about 500 VCMs malfunctioned, which was also "very minimal."

Each clustered precinct has one VCM.

Buenaobra hoped that voters did not leave the precincts, had waited for the VCM replacements and cast their votes.

PPCRV said the usual problems voters encountered during Monday's polls were defective VCMs, paper jams, and difficulty by the voters in finding their precincts.

PPCRV has around 300,000 volunteers deployed nationwide and had helped voters found their precincts. They have copies of the voters' list and their precinct numbers.

Buenaobra said they expect to start the unofficial count on the results of the elections on Tuesday morning.

But she said the public could see on the transparency server the unofficial count of votes in areas which could immediately transmit the results of the polls after the precincts closed at 6pm.

PPCRV, which put up its command center at United Nations Avenue in Manila, has been receiving reports from their volunteers on the ground regarding the conduct of the polls. It is authorized to receive fourth copy of the election returns from the clustered precincts.

Buenaobra said they hope to reach at least 80 percent of the overall vote cast during their quick count, which would be 24/7 within the next three days.

PPCRV said the quick count could take place for about two weeks or even faster. Celerina Monte/DMS