Posts on Facebook (FB) are erroneously claiming that 16 to 17 million voters had their votes for senatorial candidates invalidated due to overvoting. This is false and a misinterpretation of data.
As early as May 16, the spurious claim was circulated by at least two FB pages. One of the posts read:
“Overvote in Senatorial race. 2019: 1,170,331. 2025: 16,801,221. Why so nonchalant COMELEC?”
The other post accused the Commission on Elections (Comelec) of rigging the May 12 midterm polls, claiming that the ballots of over 17 million Filipinos had already been pre-shaded.
As of May 22, there have been a total of 17,028,780 overvotes – only for senators –
in the recently concluded polls, according to the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL).
Overvoting occurs when a voter shades on the ballot more candidates than the maximum possible for a certain position, like more than 12 for senators or more than one for party-list.
Aside from senators, election statistics showed millions of overvotes for party-lists, district representatives and other local elective positions. The Comelec stated that while a person’s overvote for a specific position is invalidated, the machine will still tally the other votes that fall within the prescribed limits.
Comelec clarified that the NAMFREL figure refers to the total overvote count in all official ballots for senators, not the actual number of individuals who voted for more than the maximum limit of 12 senatorial candidates.
“Because a voter may overvote by more than the maximum of 12 candidates that can be chosen for the senatorial race, the accurate way to analyze this [figure] is to divide the total overvote count by 12,” the polling body said in Filipino in a May 21 statement.
Using Comelec’s formula and the partial and unofficial data presented by NAMFREL, VERA Files Fact Check calculated that exactly 1,419,065 people overvoted in the senatorial race – far from the 16 to 17 million figure claimed by these spurious posts.
“Approximately 1.4 million overvotes is the actual [figure in the senatorial race] – which is within the 1.5 to 2.5% normal range from the previous elections,” the Comelec added.
The total number of people who overvoted is 2.5% of the 56,683,034 voters who cast their ballot, which is barely within the maximum “normal range” set by the poll body.
The false claim continues to spread a week after the polling body rejected on May 15 the bid of Kingdom of Jesus Christ leader Apollo Quiboloy’s camp for a manual recount of votes. Garcia said the Commission has no budget left to conduct a manual recount.
FB pages Joie De Vivre Every Other Day (created on Jan. 4, 2024) and Duterte Movement International (Oct. 25, 2016) published the posts, collectively garnering over 4,600 reactions, 600 comments and 945 shares.
