Precinct finder for 2025 polls difficult to hack — Comelec chief

Voting precinct. File photo.

MANILA, Philippines — Commission on Elections (Comelec) Chairman George Erwin Garcia on Thursday said that hacking the precinct finder for the 2025 elections will be difficult.

According to Garcia, the poll body has anticipated that there will be attempts to breach the precinct finder amid attempts to hack the Comelec website.

“We know that will happen. They will attempt to hack but with our close coordination with DICT [Department of Information and Communications Technology] DOST [Department of Science Technology] other government agencies, we know that they will have a hard time because of our trained and experienced personnel from the Information Technology Department,” Garcia, speaking in Filipino, said in a press conference.

READ: Garcia: Comelec’s precinct finder up 2 weeks before May 2025 polls

Garcia reiterated that the precinct finder will be accessible two weeks before the elections.

He also assured that the poll body’s data is secure and no incidents of data breaches have been reported.

Garcia on Wednesday told reporters that the Comelec website has been receiving “millions of hacking attempts.” However, he said that none of the attempts were successful.

READ: Garcia: Hackers fail to breach Comelec website, OVCS

He noted that the almost 60,000 attempts were made against the Comelec’s online voting and counting system.