Election Law (The Nuisance Candidate)

The presence of nuisance candidates during elections has been a recognized problem in the Philippine political scene. The Supreme Court has noted that as early as 1988, some candidates in many parts of the country have employed the dirty tactic of fielding nuisance candidates with the same surnames as the leading contenders.

The Election Code defines a nuisance candidate as one who makes a mockery of the elections, or who sows confusion among the electorate or one who has no bona fide intention to run for the office for which he filed his Certificate of Candidacy. Traditionally, the votes for a nuisance candidate were counted in favor of the legitimate candidate with the same surname (except if what was written in the ballot was the exact name and surname of the nuisance candidate which was considered stray).

When the Philippines turned to automated elections, where the voters would indicate their chosen candidate by shading the oval corresponding to his name printed on the ballot, rather writing the candidate’s name in the space provided like in manual elections, there arose the contention that the votes for the nuisance candidate must be considered stray rather than be counted in favor of the legitimate candidate. In fact, the COMELEC held that substantial distinctions between manual and automated elections validly altered the rules on considering the votes cast for the disqualified nuisance candidates.

In De la Cruz vs. COMELEC, G.R. No. 192221, Nov. 13, 2012, the Supreme Court addressed the core question: “If the name of a nuisance candidate whose certificate of candidacy had been cancelled by the Commission on Election (COMELEC) was still included or printed in the official ballots on election day, should the votes cast for such nuisance candidate be considered stray or counted in favor of the bona fide candidate?”

In justifying that the votes for the nuisance candidate must still be credited to the bona fide candidate, the Supreme Court, acknowledged that even after the elections were automated, the evils of nuisance candidates still persist. The Court explained that the possibility of confusion in names of candidates if the names of nuisance candidates remained on the ballots on election day, cannot be discounted or eliminated, even under the automated voting system especially considering that voters who mistakenly shaded the oval beside the name of the nuisance candidate instead of the bona fide candidate they intended to vote for could no longer ask for replacement ballots to correct the same. In the same case, the Court also noted that damage to the bona fide candidate will ensue specially if the name of nuisance candidate with the same surname remains in the official ballot.

It must be noted that the crediting of the votes to the legitimate candidate is implemented by the Special Board of Canvassers in the execution phase of the Petition to Deny Due Course to the COC (of the nuisance candidate), which means that there is no need to institute another action, like an election protest, or a Quo Warranto proceeding (as claimed by some quarters), to remove the seated candidate and to proclaim the bona fide if the latter turns out to have garnered the highest number of votes after the votes of the nuisance candidate is added to his.

Another case where the Supreme Court applied the same treatment to the votes for the nuisance candidates is Zapanta vs. COMELEC, G. R. No. 233016, March 5, 2019, although this case pertained to multi-slot positions (the City Council is an example). The only difference is that each individual ballot must be examined and where the nuisance and the legitimate candidate were both voted for in the ballot, the legitime candidate only gets a single vote. Admittedly, the special canvass in these instances would take longer compared to where the contested position is single slot but just the same, the vote for the nuisance is credited to the legitimate candidate.

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