The Commission on Elections (Comelec) reported Wednesday that around 1.3 million Filipinos had their votes for senators invalidated in the 2025 midterm elections after selecting more than 12 candidates, which is not allowed.
Comelec chair George Garcia said this figure represents about 2% of the 57.3 million voters who participated in the May 12 polls.
“That’s 17 million individual votes rendered invalid, as seen in our consolidation system,” Garcia said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum. “Based on the statistics, 12 senatorial candidates did not benefit from those 17 million votes.”
“Dividing 17 million invalid votes by 12 gives us an estimate of 1.3 million voters who overvoted. That’s a significant number—2% of the total electorate,” he added.
The Comelec officially proclaimed the 12 winning senators on Saturday. Senator-elect Camille Villar and reelectionists Lito Lapid and Imee Marcos secured the last three spots with more than 13 million votes each. Ben Tulfo narrowly missed the cut, finishing 13th with 12 million votes. Bong Revilla, Abby Binay, and Benhur Abalos followed, all earning over 11 million votes.
Garcia said senatorial candidates who wish to challenge the invalidation of votes due to overvoting may file an election protest before the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
“Overvoting can be used as a reason to examine the ballots. It could be that the mark was smudged, there was an accidental dot or X, or it was improperly shaded,” he explained. “In an election protest, all ballots are manually reviewed, and candidates can argue that those votes should be counted rather than discarded.”
Garcia acknowledged that overvoting is a recurring issue in every election.
“We cannot completely prevent overvoting. Sometimes voters change their minds after shading a name and make an X mark instead. But the rule is strict—once marked, it counts,” he said.
Should any candidate pursue a protest, the Comelec is ready to provide all necessary documentation to assist in the filing.