Comelec prescribed an accuracy rate of 99.995 percent as a response to the requirement of the Election Automation Law that the automated election system perform accurately. This was included in the technical specifications of the PCOS enumerated in the Request for Proposal for the Automation of the 2010 National and Local Elections issued by the Comelec. This requirement is interpreted to mean that a discrepancy of one vote out of 20,000 vote marks between a manual count and PCOS count is acceptable.
In evaluating the PCOS eventually used in the 2010 and 2013 elections, the Comelec conducted a simple test of the machine using a few hundred test ballots with a total of 20,000 vote marks. Having found no discrepancy between the manual count and the PCOS count, the Special Bids and Awards Committee declared the PCOS machine 100 percent accurate.
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