Gabriela asks Comelec to look into alleged discrepancy in Eleksyon 2025 vote counts 

Gabriela Women’s Party-list sent a formal letter to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) requesting an investigation into the alleged discrepancy in the vote count during the midterm elections last May 12. 

The pro-women group claimed that there was a reduction in the number of votes they received. 

“On May 12, 2025, as the National Elections commenced, votes were cast and promptly began to be tallied and ranked. At 2:03 AM, the Gabriela Women’s Party had garnered 252,562 votes, according to data from COMELEC’s transparency media server. However, by 2:20 AM, this number had inexplicably decreased by 49,614 votes," it said in its letter to Comelec chairperson George Garcia, attaching its screenshot of the count.

“This unexplained reduction raises serious concerns about the integrity and transparency of the electoral process. If votes for a sectoral party representing women and other vulnerable sectors can simply vanish without explanation, it risks disenfranchising not only the candidates but the countless women and marginalized communities whose voices they seek to represent,” the letter further read. 

In an earlier report, Comelec explained the alleged “discrepancy” in the partial, unofficial tally of votes for Eleksyon 2025.

Garcia said entities receiving election returns (ERs) from polling precincts, including the media, should have a software program to "clean" the data and prevent duplication of ERs.

"Sumobra, sabi ng 5 million. Sapagkat hindi nagkaroon ng sinasabing program para malinis ang nadodoble as a result of processing. Walang dagdag-bawas na nangyari. Ang pagbabasehan niyo lagi kasi… 'yung Comelec website na nilalabas namin kasi ang Comelec website walang interruption. Tuloy-tuloy na nangyayari," he added.

(They say there was an excess of 5 million votes. This happened because no program was in place to clean the duplicate data as a result of the processing. There was no vote shaving, vote padding that happened. You should always base your numbers on... the Comelec website because we don't have any interruption. Our operations are continuous.)

Early Tuesday, media outfits found that partial, unofficial results reflected from the Comelec media server showed a decrease in votes despite the continuous increase in the ERs. They discovered that transmissions sent by precincts were duplicated during consolidation in the Comelec's server.

According to a report by GMA Integrated News' Joseph Morong, an unnamed poll body official said the alleged discrepancy could be due to an aggregation tool.

There was a possibility, the official said, that the data the Comelec sent piled up.

Meanwhile, aside from the election-related anomalies, Gabriela noted that it has also been a victim of red-tagging and there were attacks on its members, leaders, and supporters throughout the campaign. 

“The Gabriela Women’s Party urgently calls on the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) to thoroughly investigate these matters and ensure the accuracy and security of transmitted electoral data. GWP also strongly demands the initiation of a manual vote count to verify and uphold the sanctity of the people’s vote,” the party said. 

“The women who rely on GWP to advocate for their rights in Congress must not be silenced by system errors and targeted attacks,” it added. 

The letter was penned by party representative Arlene Brosas and first nominee Sarah Jane Elago. —LDF, GMA Integrated News