SC rules votes for nuisance candidates are stray

The Supreme Court has ruled that votes for a declared nuisance candidate under the automated election system (AES) will be considered stray and will not be counted for any candidate.

This new ruling abandons a previous precedent where such votes were counted in favor of the legitimate candidate.

The SC stated that this is no longer applicable under the AES as voting machines base counts on full names and aliases, unlike manual elections where voters wrote names.

The high court emphasized that the previous precedent "had no basis in law" as Sections 69 and 211 of the Omnibus Election Code state that a nuisance candidate is deemed to have never filed a COC, making votes for them stray.