SC: Votes for nuisance candidates should not be counted in favor of any bet

MANILA, Philippines – The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that votes clearly cast for a nuisance candidate shall be considered stray votes and not be counted in favor of any candidate.

This landmark decision, penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh and was made public on Thursday, December 4, abandoned the precedent applied in past cases.

According to the SC, these are now the effects of the new rule on cases involving nuisance candidates:

• Votes clearly cast for legitimate candidates are counted in favor of said legitimate candidates
• Votes clearly cast for the nuisance candidate, whose certificate of candidacy is cancelled or not given due course, are considered stray and should not be counted in favor of any other candidate

The High Court looked into the existing jurisprudence related to the case at hand, such as Dela Cruz v. Comelec (Commission on Elections), Santos v. Comelec, and Zapanta v. Comelec.

In these past cases wherein the results were from manual elections, the prevailing doctrine was that “[the] votes cast for the nuisance candidate, or such votes where the intent of the voter cannot be determined on the face of the ballot, are counted in favor of the legitimate candidate, as no other candidate is deemed to have run for that position as of the day of the election.”

According to the SC, there will no longer be “vague votes” under the automated election system “because the voting machines will base their count on the full names with aliases of each candidate, as shaded in the ballots.”

Unlike in the manual elections where voters had to write the name of candidates, there’s no longer any room for confusion under the automated elections because voters shade ballots instead, the SC added.

“The Court emphasized that the previous rule had no basis in law as the clear tenor of Sections 69 and 211 of the Omnibus Election Code provides that a nuisance candidate is deemed to have never filed a certificate of candidacy and therefore the votes cast for such nuisance candidate are considered stray. Thus, there can be no crediting of votes cast for a nuisance candidate in favor of any other candidate,” the SC said.

“According to the Court, a rule that is without unequivocal basis in law and supplants people’s choices on the basis of perceived errors in the way they had cast their vote usurps the very sovereign will that the rule intends to protect,” it added.

The case stemmed from a certiorari and prohibition petition filed by Marcos “Macoy” Cabrera Amutan, who ran as a board member of Cavite’s 5th District in the 2022 elections.

He was initially proclaimed as one of the winners. However, after losing candidate Alvic Madlangsakay Poblete was declared a nuisance candidate, the votes cast for Poblete were counted in favor of another candidate, Francisco Paolo Poblete Crisostomo.

Later, the Comelec annulled Amutan’s proclamation and declared Crisostomo as among the winning candidates. – Rappler.com