ACM errors, vote-buying, and flawed partylist system mar 2025 midterm polls

Poll watchdog Kontra Daya released an executive summary of their election report on May 21, listing all electoral violations, vested interests, disenfranchisement, and transparency concerns incurred before and during the 2025 Midterm Elections.

(Photo by Raymharc Samonte/The Communicator)

The report states that these are recurring problems since 2022, thus the call to make the Commission on Elections (Comelec) accountable for their lack of transparency and irresponsibility over major flaws and delays in the system.

Electoral Violations

Two months before the election day, major red-tagging and political harassment targeted prominent opposition figures and progressive party-lists (PLs), including disinformation campaigns and false disqualification reports.

Kabataan, Gabriela, and other progressive party lists faced severe red-tagging with bloodied coffin effigies displayed in several areas, labeling them as members of the New People’s Army (NPA), a signature tactic state forces weaponize against the opposition.  

Several social media pages also propagated disinformation on the disqualification of partylist Bayan Muna on social media, which the Comelec eventually fact-checked.

These virtual attacks, according to Kontra Daya, are promulgated to weaken particular candidates from winning— attributed to troll farms controlled by big political groups. Reports were also raised regarding foreign interference involving hiring troll armies to distort and manipulate public opinion.

Other pre-electoral violations include incumbents using government resources for campaigning, such as through the Ayuda Para sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP) which was reported to be selectively given to increase political advantage. Similarly, vote buying is flagged by Vote Report PH to be rampant yet unpunished, with prices mounting to P16,000 in some vote-rich regions. 

Despite numerous complaints and video evidence, law enforcement remains scarce.

During the election day, further anomalies were recorded. Automated counting machines (ACMs) faced several errors which erode trust in poll sanctity, from malfunctions and paper jams to ballots collected without confirmation of scanning.

Based on the report, at least 311 machines were replaced on election day.

Millions of voters were also disenfranchised due to long delays, missing names on voter lists, ballot rejections, overvoting cases, and low voter turnout (esp. Overseas voting).

Overvoting cases reached more than 18 million, attributed to the increased sensitivity of the ACMs to 25% in October last year, the highest percentage since automated elections began in 2010. However, despite numerous complaints, Comelec still flagged the issue as a minor glitch. 

For the low voter turnout among Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), the watchdog recorded only 7.19% votes in North and Latin America and 24.15% in the Asia-Pacific regions, drastically lower than the 2022 vote count amounting to 34.88%.

Kontra Daya notes that this could be due to the rushed implementation of the Online Voting and Counting System (OVCs), vague enrollment instructions, and system glitches that forced overseas voters to not render their votes. 

Meanwhile, illegal campaigning is also recorded during the polls with flyers, sample ballots, and campaign paraphernalias seen on polling precincts to persuade voters’ choices at the last minute. There were also organized supporters allegedly engaging voters near precincts, which is illegal according to the Comelec. 

Vested Interests

According to  Kontra Daya, political families, big businesses, and military-backed groups hijacked Party-list systems via 2013 Atong Paglaum v. Comelec Supreme Court ruling, thus the calls to remediate Republic Act 7941, or the Party-list System Act.

86 out of the 156 running party-lists are reportedly connected to these powers, while on May 19, a whopping 40 out of 63 proclaimed PLs are flagged to have the same vested interests, with two (Duterte Youth and Bagong Henerasyon) being suspended due to their pending cases.

Several nominees are revealed to have ties with incumbent politicians, former government officials, or known allies of influential businesses. Some also misrepresent themselves as advocates of the marginalized while having zero records of engagement to these communities, undermining civilian representation.

Automated Election Issues 

Election watchdogs have flagged several anomalies in the system—from the supplier, source code inconsistencies, and transmission delays to result discrepancies. 

Kontra Daya has raised the questionable qualification of Miru Systems to win the P17.9 billion contract for the machines. According to their report, the company had been flagged in previous international controversies and was initially disqualified due to incomplete documentation.

Not only were they recipients of the contract, there were also no proper public hearings or at least reassessment of eligibility conducted to Miru Systems, notwithstanding other concerns to local partners with questionable links.

Meanwhile, the report also flagged how the source code review process, which should be done three months prior the election day, was completed just a week before the polls. This rushed activity does not allow for complaints due to delay.

Problem is that the software version installed in ACMs on the election day is version 3.5.0, instead of the initially expert-assessed version 3.4.0. While the Comelec states that they updated the hash code after approval, several poll watchdogs believe this erodes trust with the commission. 

According to key reports, since the hash code is suddenly different, groups can not view what was updated in the newer version.

Server transmissions were also problematic, as parallel data delivery serves as a crucial function of AES transparency mechanism. Yet, although Comelec Chairman Georce Garcia declared the removal of transparency servers in the polls to streamline transmission of votes to civil society and media servers, it took over an hour for Comelec-sanctioned groups like PPCRV and NAMFREL to begin receiving data when Comelec has already received a third of the election returns. 

The integrity of SD cards used for vote-counting were also raised, as the digital certificates used to verify data are either inconsistent or nonexistent. There were also reports of unreadable or blank files, and worse—duplicate results which affected 15,000 precincts and the ranking of over 7,000 candidates. 

How to Kontra Daya

By the end of the report, the poll watchdog has raised several suggestions on improving the next elections.

• Reform the Party-list system

• Remediate the Party-List System Act (RA 7941)

• Develop open source AES by outsourcing local IT community and Filipino-owned IT companies

• Investigate reports of foreign interference via troll armies

• Adoption of hybrid election system through simultaneous manual and automated vote counting at precinct level to speed up canvassing process while preserving verifiability.

• De-clusterize polling precincts

• Consult Election Service Workers on their hazard pay, increased security to protect them from political operatives

• Hold Comelec accountable

According to Kontra Daya, the Comelec has means to adopt hybrid elections with their authority under RA No. 8436, an act that authorizes the conduct of an automated election system, as amended by RA 9369, or the Election Automation Law of 2007, to draft its Internal Rules and Regulations (IRR). 

They also added that the AES is fundamentally flawed and prone to vulnerabilities which allow election fraud to persist. Therefore, Comelec should sanction manual counting to verify the results of a glitch-plagued elections.

Article: Marc Nathaniel Servo

Graphics: Kent Bicol