The Commission on Elections (Comelec) should look into the “security breach” in Smarmatic’s servers following the statement of Senator Imee Marcos that its automation polling system has been compromised, the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo said on Thursday, March 17.
Robredo’s spokesman Barry Gutierrez, in a statement, urged the Comelec to “fully investigate and take the appropriate action.”
“Regardless of the candidate we support, we can all agree on the importance of honest, peaceful, and credible elections,” he said.
Marcos, chairperson of the Senate electoral reforms committee, claimed that there had been a “very serious” security breach involving the operations of Smartmatic.
Smartmatic is the service contractor of elections software to be used in the May 9, 2022 polls.
The lady senator told reporters that the data breach compromises “the processes and operations of Smartmatic in very serious ways.”
READ: 'Media was right': Lawmakers confirm data breach, hacking of voters' info
The alleged security breach was divulged to Marcos and her fellow senators in an executive session with poll officials on Thursday morning.
Imee, the sister of former Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who is seeking the presidency, said some of the supposed stolen data were uploaded on Facebook and released online.
But Gutierrez reminded those claiming about the supposed data breach that they must be “responsible” for issuing such statement.
In a press conference, Comelec and Smartmatic already denied the reported data breach of their servers.
Comelec Commissioner George Garcia maintained that the system was not hacked, and that the poll body is committed to ensure the system will be safe and accurate.