MANILA — The Supreme Court has abandoned previous precedent and ruled that votes clearly cast for a nuisance candidate—whose certificate of candidacy is cancelled or not given due course—should be considered stray votes and must not be counted in favor of any other candidate.

The ruling stemmed from a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition filed by Marcos “Macoy” Cabrera Amutan, who ran as Board Member of the Sanggunian Panlalawigan for Cavite’s fifth district in the 2022 elections. Amutan was initially proclaimed a winner, but the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) later credited the votes of Alvic Madlangsakay Poblete—who had been declared a nuisance candidate—to Francisco Paolo Poblete Crisostomo. COMELEC subsequently annulled Amutan’s proclamation and declared Crisostomo as one of the winning candidates.

In the Decision penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh, the Court reviewed jurisprudence such as Dela Cruz v. COMELEC, Santos v. COMELEC, and Zapanta v. COMELEC. These earlier rulings held that in manual elections, votes cast for a nuisance candidate—or votes whose intent could not be determined—were to be counted in favor of the legitimate candidate, since the nuisance bet was deemed never to have run as of election day.

The Court said it found it necessary to revisit these doctrines in light of the automated election system (AES). Under the AES, it said voting machines read and count the shaded ovals corresponding to the full names or aliases of candidates, effectively eliminating “vague votes” that had existed under manual voting where names were handwritten.

With this, the Court declared that in situations involving a declared nuisance candidate, two effects apply: votes clearly cast for the legitimate candidate shall be counted in their favor, while votes clearly cast for the nuisance candidate shall be considered stray and not credited to any other contender.

The SC stressed that the earlier rule had no legal basis because Sections 69 and 211 of the Omnibus Election Code state that a nuisance candidate is deemed never to have filed a certificate of candidacy, making votes cast for them stray by law. It added that crediting such votes in favor of another candidate “usurps the very sovereign will that the rule intends to protect.”