the second round, including parties that did not surpass the 2% threshold, until the seats reserved for party-list representatives are filled up. Major parties are prohibited from running in the party-list election, which was instituted to allow marginalized sectors of society to join the political process. With 234 district seats, and party-list seats should comprise at most 20% of the seats, there were 58 seats up for election Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao elections Originally scheduled for 2011, Congress postponed the election to 2013 in order for reforms to be put in place and for the regional election to be synchronized with the 2013 election. All seats of regional elected officials are up. Local elections All local government units (LGUs) had their elections on this day. Positions up are mayors, vice mayors, councilors, and if applicable, governors, vice governors and board members. Controversies Election watchdog AES Watch has called the 2013 elections "a technology and political disaster" due to several controversies, including premature proclamation of candidates and irregular decisions made during the canvassing. PCOS transmission issues On the day of elections, an estimated 18,000 voting machines, representing a quarter of the total 78,000 machines, experienced problems in transmitting the voting results. The Comelec claimed that the problems were caused not by the machines themselves, but by corrupted compact flash cards and issues with the cellular network coverage. Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes claimed that the Comelec was aware of problems with cellular network coverage, but deliberately kept it from the public until after the election. The poll watchdog AES Watch issued a statement on May 18, saying that up to 8.6 million votes had been affected, or possibly disenfranchised. Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company, the Philippines' largest telecommunications company, released a statement dismissing the Comelec's allegations of cellular network problems, saying that the combined networks of Smart Communications and Sun Cellular covered every city and municipality in the country, and no unusually heavy traffic was recorded on election day. The Comelec failed to meet its self-imposed deadline of proclaiming winners in the senatorial election 48 hours after the end of the voting period. Senatorial winners proclamation The COMELEC proclaimed the first six senatorial winners of the election on May 16, though only 20 percent of election results had been canvassed. Three more winners were proclaimed the following day. The winners were proclaimed alphabetically rather than by the number of votes garnered,