PPCRV on ’25 midterm polls: Inaccurate voter receipts due to markings

MANILA, Philippines — The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) on Monday said that inaccurate voter receipts in the 2025 midterm elections were caused by unintended markings brought by smudges of markers and thumb marks. 

During the PPCRV’s presentation of its final report for the 2025 midterm elections, PPCRV spokesperson Ana Singson said that the accredited citizens’ arm received multiple calls about inaccurate voter receipts for the first time since automated elections in 2010. 

READ: ACM glitches, ‘overvoting’ top Election Day woes 

“Why were [the] receipts inaccurate? Because there were unintended marks caused by the pentel pen or caused by their very own thumbmark. So there were unintended marks that if they actually fell into an oval will be counted as a vote, and in fact, they were counted as a vote,” Singson said. 

Singson pointed out that the marker “played such a big role” in inaccurate voter receipts showing candidates some voters did not vote for or having more candidates than they actually voted for. 

According to the final report of the PPCRV, the council noted of the reports of ink of marker pens not drying quickly that led to “paper jams, rejected ballots, deposits of wet inks in scanners and rollers, creation of unintended marks and smudges on ballots subsequently fed into the ACM [automated counting machines], possibly accounting for unintended votes if unintended smudges, markings were counted by the ACM as votes.”

Further, Singson also said that while the council cannot quantify the exact scale of unintended marks, it correlates the issue with data of overvoting and the ones from the random manual audit (RMA). 

The report said that “[w]e can co-relate it with over vote data since extra markings and extra unintended votes could result in over votes.”

It also noted that the overvote rate for the 2025 midterm elections is 2.34%, which is less than the 2.51% overvote rate in the 2019 midterm elections. 

It also said that an initial report from the PPCRV lead verifier who participated in the RMA “indicates that while there is a noted surge in over voting and while unintended machine markings and even wet markings are present in the ballots, more of the over votes are caused by the voters themselves rather than machine-created unintended marks and smudges.”

Further, the PPCRV also mentioned that the 15% shading threshold set for the ACMs “does not help in the smudging issue,” emphasizing that the low threshold makes it easier for the ACMs “to interpret some bit of accumulated dust or ink particles as a valid marking if it is inside the oval.”

Recommendation

With this, Singson said that the council recommends the review of the original terms of reference (TOR) where it indicated the use of a stamping pen, instead of a marker pen. 

“That stamp would be the exact size of the oval because it would be customized so wala nang problema (there will be no problem) with the threshold, it’s the exact size of the oval. And because the stamping pen does not have a lot of wet ink, you will not have a lot of wet ink issues,” Singson underscored. 

Singson also said that there should be a review of quality control and testing procedures used in election materials.

She added that the council is beginning to believe that the final testing and sealing, a procedure where registered voters will practice voting with original ballots in the ACMs to test their functionality, “were not consummate to catch big issues like this.”

The PPCRV also recommended reverting the threshold of ballot shading from the current 15% to 25%.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) previously set a 25% shading threshold but it was lowered to 15% for the first time for the 2025 midterm elections. 

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia on Monday said that the poll body fully agrees with the findings and recommendations of the PPCRV.

“In the coming elections, the recommendations given by the PPCRV, we will insist, just like what I told a commissioner that we will have a lot to talk about to adjust the issues so in the next elections, like the Bangsamoro Parliamentary elections, the small problems won’t happen again,” Garcia told reporters in an interview. 

Garcia also mentioned that the Comelec en banc previously agreed to the use of stamp pens but they raised the issue that somebody may question that the TOR may be tailored fit in favor of where the supplier or provider of the pens came from. 

READ: Comelec says stamps may replace pens in future elections

He then shared that the Comelec will conduct a vendors’ fair in February 2026 as part of their research and development year in preparations for the 2028 national and local elections.

He said that one year will be allotted in crafting the TOR so there will be delivery of materials in early part of 2027. 

As the PPCRV pointed out that the ballot paper is too thin and it reverts to the previous paper weight of 160 GSM, Garcia recognized the need to use the previous weight, instead of the current 90 GSM.

“The pen used was water-based. It was oil-based before. The problem is if we use oil-based, the paper should be thick. The problem with water-based, it does not blot in the black but it does not dry easily.”

Meanwhile, Garcia said that while he agrees that the shading threshold must be reverted to the 25%, he noted that it could not be implemented in the upcoming Bangsamoro elections. 

He explained that the law provides that the elections are a continuation of the 2025 midterm elections, thus, the poll body is mandated to implement the same procedure in both elections. 

“For purposes of the 2028 NLE, it should be 25%,” he said. 

Garcia also recognized the issue of smudges caused by fingerprints but he said that fingerprints can’t be removed in the computerized voters’ list as they are proof that a voter already cast their vote. 

However, he sees an adjustment where the putting fingerprints in the list can be done after casting of votes to avoid smudges in ballots. /gsg