The Supreme Court has issued a new ruling declaring that votes cast for nuisance candidates under the Automated Election System (AES) must be treated strictly as stray votes and cannot be credited to any other candidate.
In a decision dated December 3, 2025, penned by Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh, the high court abandoned earlier precedent, stressing that such practice had no basis in law.
The Court underscored that the Omnibus Election Code considers a nuisance candidate as someone who is deemed never to have filed a certificate of candidacy, making any votes cast in their favor automatically stray.
“Thus, there can be no crediting of votes cast for a nuisance candidate in favor of any other candidate,” the Court stated.
The ruling resolved the petition filed by Marcos Cabrera Amutan, who won as Cavite provincial board member in 2022.
His proclamation was annulled after losing candidate Alvic Madlangsakay Poblete—later declared a nuisance candidate—had his votes credited to Francisco Paolo Poblete Crisostomo.
With the new jurisprudence, the Supreme Court emphasized that the AES eliminates ambiguity in ballots, as machines read shaded names rather than handwritten entries.
“As opposed to the manual elections where the voters had to handwrite the name of their chosen candidates, there should no longer be any room for confusion under the AES,” the Court said.
The decision reinstates clarity in the treatment of nuisance candidates and establishes a definitive rule moving forward.