REPORTS of overvoting have flooded social media as Filipinos cast their ballots on May 12, 2025.
Many netizens raised concerns that the issue stemmed from overly sensitive Automatic Counting Machines (ACMs), which flagged overvoting even when only a small mark or spill extended outside the intended shaded circle.
Among those who experienced the issue was Khalil Ramos, a Filipino actor and singer.
In a story posted on his Instagram account, Ramos shared his experience to warn his fans and the others.
“Be extra careful when shading your ballots,” he warned.
“I pressed a bit too hard on the first page, and it left marks on the back, right where the partylist section was.”
“Sadly my partylist vote was invalidated due to ‘overvoting’. Don’t make the same mistake,” he said.
Besides Ramos, more reports of similar issues continue to surface, with voters sharing their frustrations over seemingly minor ballot errors.
A netizen, John Lorenz Navarro, shared his frustration in a post on Facebook, which has gone viral now.
He said that it wasn’t only him that experienced this, but his sister and brother as well.
“After casting my votes, the receipt showed that I had overvoted for the positions of Senator and Governor. I immediately brought this to the attention of the facilitators, but they simply said it was beyond their control,” said Navarro.
“Later, my sister experienced the same issue — overvoting on the exact same positions. We raised the concern again, and one of the facilitators casually said, ‘Baka sumobra kayo ng boto ng Governor.’ As if we didn’t know how to fill out a ballot properly?”
Navarro said that they pressed on the facilitators to do something about the overvoting concern, since it was clearly becoming an issue. Many votes are being invalidated due to the machine’s sensitivity.
“While we were having a dialogue with the Principal, other voters in our precinct continued experiencing overvoting issues. In the end, all the Principal could tell us was that they would include our concerns in their report,” he said.
He also shared in the comment section that his father experienced the same thing from a different precinct, invalidating his vote for his chosen partylist.
Overvoting appears to be the primary issue so far. According to a report from VoteReportPH, a community dedicated to reporting electoral fraud and monitoring real-time actions, automatic counting machine (ACM) errors are at the heart of this election’s problems, as of 10:30 a.m.
“As of 9:30 AM today, the reports verified so far were mostly related to automated counting machine (ACM) errors (42% of all verified reports), with some reports documenting hour-long delays due to malfunctioning machines,” they said in their post.
“Other ACM errors include paper jams and issues with overvoting or rejected ballots. We also note several reports concerning the ‘smudging’ of ink on the ballot upon feeding into the machine, as well as other issues regarding the high sensitivity of the machine scanner, resulting in overvotes in some cases.”
They also reported cases of red-tagging—labeling individuals or groups as communists or terrorists without evidence—at 22 percent, and BEI noncompliance at 13 percent, where the Board of Election Inspectors fails to follow COMELEC procedures.
As of writing, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has yet to release an official statement addressing these concerns.
