By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan
The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) on Thursday, May 8, launched its Operation QR Count (OQC) to engage the public in accelerating election results verification for the May 12, 2025 polls.
Through the NAMFREL 2025 mobile app—available on the Apple App Store and Google Play—voters can upload election returns from their local precincts.
Users must submit images of the five QR codes printed on the official election returns posted outside precincts.
NAMFREL’s headquarters will then cross-match the uploaded precinct data with the official election results transmitted to them from Commission on Elections (Comelec)-authorized servers.
The election watchdog’s national chairperson Lito Averia said the initiative aims to empower the public to help independently verify the accuracy of transmitted election returns.
“NAMFREL wants the public to independently help verify the election returns that are posted outside of precincts because these are printed before transmission,” Averia said during the virtual launch.
“These are votes verified by voters while inserting their ballots into the automated counting machines,” he added.
NAMFREL secretary-general Eric Alvia explained that the OQC system will complement their existing volunteer operations.
Comelec has authorized NAMFREL volunteers to scan the QR codes found on the Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT), or the receipt printed by vote-counting machines, using a separate mobile app.
NAMFREL systems head Fernando Contreras Jr. emphasized that the OQC system is built on crowdsourcing, allowing ordinary voters to contribute to data verification.
“The concept of crowdsourcing [for the OQC] is that the quality of the data would be more stable because many people would be sending them, and the data has to be the same,” Contreras said.
“If people submit results from precincts, we can verify that data against what’s been transmitted,” he added.
Founded in 1983, NAMFREL is one of the country’s oldest election watchdogs and remains a Comelec-accredited citizens’ arm.
