Overseas Filipinos begin voting in 2025 midterm elections

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For the first time in Philippine elections, Filipinos are using the internet to cast their votes

SINGAPORE – Voting in the 2025 midterm elections has officially commenced as the monthlong period for overseas Filipinos to cast their votes began on Sunday, April 13.

Almost all of the 1.24 million Filipinos registered to vote abroad are slated to vote online — a first in Philippine history. Some 1.2 million Filipinos under the jurisdiction of 77 Philippine consular posts will conduct internet voting.

The remaining 16 posts will conduct the traditional modes — personal, where voters physically show up to embassies and consulates to fill out their ballots, or postal, where they get their ballots in the mail to fill up at home and send back.

The voting period will end on election day, May 12, at 7 pm Philippine Standard Time.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has said that the overhaul to internet voting was intended to address historically low turnouts in overseas voting, the highest being around 40% in the 2022 elections. Back in 2022, overseas Filipinos reported being disenfranchised because of issues like needing to go to their local embassy or consulate, which was not always close to home.

Meanwhile, 16 posts still have to conduct the old mode of voting because of issues like economic instability, or the host countries like China and Russia not permitting the use of their local internet services for the conduct of the Philippine election, Comelec Chairman George Garcia said.

In internet voting, the 1.2 million registered Filipinos need to pre-enroll in the Comelec’s online system to be able to participate. Pre-enrollment effectively began on March 22 and will continue until May 7.

As of Friday, April 11, just over 3% or around 40,000 of the 1.2 million have pre-registered to vote.

Overseas groups across various countries and political affiliations have flagged their concerns about internet voting, such as what they perceived was a lacking information campaign, the system being discriminatory to Filipinos who might not be tech-savvy, and general distrust in the integrity of an online voting system.

But the Comelec has stood by the security of the new system by Filipino provider SMS Global Technologies, in partnership with US-based firm Sequent Tech. The Comelec’s international certification partner Pro V&V, in finishing the source code, noted how difficult the system would be to hack.

On Friday, the Comelec said it had blocked some 75,000 attempts to hack the online system. – Rappler.com