No failure of elections: ACM replacements still lower than 2022’s

MANILA, Philippines — While 311 automated counting machines (ACMs) were replaced over the course of the 2025 midterm elections, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) stressed that this is still fewer compared to the 2022 presidential polls.

Comelec chair George Erwin Garcia during a press briefing at Manila Hotel’s tent city said that no major issue has been encountered as they opted to immediately replace problematic ACMs considering they have 16,000 backups on standby.

Still, only 311 ACMs malfunctioned—way below the around 2,500 vote counting machines that encountered problems in the previous polls.

“So, as compared to the 2022 elections, where during the first few hours of the voting, 2,500 machines were immediately replaced by Comelec, here in all fairness, we only replaced 311 machines,” Garcia said on Monday.

Data shared by Garcia to reporters showed that the most common cause of ACM errors were brought by the scanner (77 instances) and thermal printers. According to the Comelec chief, there were some machines whose scanners have to be cleaned regularly due to the extreme heat and humidity earlier—therefore stopping the feeding of ballots.

“There are some machines, like in the case of the scanner issue which needed to be wiped and cleaned regularly. This is because of the intense heat from the sun and the humid weather conditions earlier, the scanner itself gets dirty. And therefore we need to clean it regularly, that’s the reason why voting stops around 15 to 20 minutes earlier,” Garcia noted.

“But we have not encountered a major issue simply because, again we have 16,000 contingency machines and as of now we just had to use 311 as replacements,” he added.

Also, Garcia said no failure of elections has been declared since the primary requirements to push through with an election have been fulfilled.

“We do not have any failure of elections whatsoever, everything functioned according to plan. Having a failure of election—there are many Supreme Court decisions already—means that number one, the materials were not delivered, not even one. Number two, teachers who will serve as electoral board members did not arrive, and it resulted in a failure to elect,” he noted.

“What if the materials were there, teachers were present, elections were held and the precinct functioned, but only one of one hundred voters cast his or her vote, that does not mean it means a failure of election. The failure to elect must be as a result of violence, terrorism, or force majeure.”

Earlier, there were fears that failure of elections might be declared in towns inside the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), particularly in Datu Odin Sinsuat, since supporters of opposing camps have blocked the delivery of election materials.

The issue has been resolved, which prompted the Comelec to only extend voting hours.

Garcia also said that some precincts’ voting hours may be extended also due to some ballots’ timing marks sustaining damage.

Several issues have already been reported in the first eight hours of voting. Earlier, netizens have complained about ACMs not accepting shaded ballots — or ballots used by individuals who have cast their votes already.

READ: Meycauayan voters: Shaded ballots not being fed to ACMs

Even Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas senatorial candidate and former senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said he experienced a minor glitch when he cast his vote in Imus, Cavite.

Lacson said his ballot was not immediately accepted by the machine.

READ: Lacson experiences glitch with voting machine

The Comelec is currently using new machines, after the poll body and South Korean firm Miru Systems Co. Ltd. (Miru Systems) inked an almost P18-billion contract for the lease of an automated election system.

The contract however was placed under scrutiny, as Comelec was questioned why it was spending more funds when the Philippine government already had existing vote counting machines (VCMs) from Smartmatic, the previous AES provider.

READ: Rep Rodriguez backs Smartmatic’s advice on reuse of VCMs for 2025 polls

Comelec has opted not to reuse Smartmatic’s VCMs due to several issues in past elections, like the 2,000 VCMs bogged down during the 2022 presidential poll. /cb