Undervoting allowed in May 12 polls — Comelec

Metro Manila, Philippines - The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Friday assured the public that leaving unshaded areas in the 2025 midterm election ballots is allowed and will not invalidate votes.

In an advisory, Comelec debunked a social media post falsely claiming that “it’s wiser not to leave blanks in the ballot” as an alleged “dirty tricks group” will find a way to “fill up those spaces.”

“FAKE NEWS ang social media post na kumakalat ukol sa babala laban sa pag-iiwan ng blangko o pag-undervote sa balota,” the poll body said.

“Ang pag-UNDERVOTE ay isang desisyon na tanging ang botante lamang ang dapat gumawa,” it added.

[Translation: The social media post circulating and warning against leaving blanks or undervoting on the ballot is FAKE NEWS…An UNDERVOTE is a decision that only the voter should make.]

Comelec also assured that voters will have to personally feed their ballots in the Automated Counting Machine (ACM) to ensure that their votes have not been tampered with.

Voters can also review their votes via the ballot image in the ACM’s screen and the Voter-Verified Paper Audit.

Comelec said more than 68.6 million people registered to vote on election day, which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared as a special non-working holiday “to enable the people to properly exercise their right to vote.”

Voters have to choose 12 senatorial candidates and a party-list group for the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, the local positions would have a district representative, a provincial governor and vice governor, sangguniang panlalawigan (provincial board) members, mayor and vice mayor, and sangguniang panlungsod (city or municipal board) members.