The National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) maintained that the Senate overvotes data, which recorded over 18 million instances nationwide, were based directly on information from the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) automated counting machines (ACMs).
In an interview with Bombo Radyo, NAMFREL National Chairperson Angel Averia Jr. responded to Comelec’s earlier claim dismissing the overvote numbers as baseless, saying the organization simply tallied votes from the same official sources shared with media and the public.
Averia clarified that all the data analyzed by NAMFREL came from ACM-generated election returns, including precinct statistics and vote counts, and were not fabricated or independently created.
He emphasized that the rise in overvotes—from over 16 million to 18 million—reflects actual voter behavior and may stem from errors such as shading more than the allowed number of candidates on the ballot or deliberate attempts to invalidate a portion of the vote.
NAMFREL downplayed concerns that these overvotes would significantly impact transparency in the 2025 national and local elections.
The group said that the presence of overvotes is a common election occurrence and may continue in future polls unless stronger voter education is implemented.
NAMFREL assured that it will continue coordinating with Comelec to clarify the data and ensure transparency in reporting results.
The province of Abra recorded the highest number of overvotes, according to NAMFREL’s findings.