PHILOSOPHY junior Clarence Mindo was proclaimed UST Central Student Council (CSC) secretary after the Central Commission on Elections (Comelec) reversed an earlier ruling that left the post vacant.
In a resolution dated April 30, the Comelec junked its initial decision that declared no winner in the election for secretary, where unanswered votes reached 9,358 — surpassing Mindo’s 8,565 votes and the 8,433 garnered by his lone opponent, Elijah Viola.
The poll body said its earlier ruling had no sufficient legal basis, pointing to the absence of any provision in the UST Students’ Election Code defining or assigning weight to “unanswered” votes.
“The designation ‘unanswered’ does not constitute a candidate and should not be treated as a vote against any. Hence, it cannot defeat the candidate who obtained the highest number of votes,” the resolution read.
“An unanswered ballot does not represent a vote for any candidate. It merely signifies that the voter has not selected a candidate for the respective position,” it added.
Comelec cited a similar case in 2016, when Steven Grecia, applying for CSC president, and Daniela Frigillana, a candidate for internal vice president of the Artlets Student Council, logged fewer votes than the then-available “abstain” option.
Grecia and Frigillana were both proclaimed in their positions that year, citing a 1966 case with a similar precedent.
“We cannot speculate on a voter’s intention; we cannot here rightfully assume the role of mind readers. Blank ballot in a contested election is thus a nullity. It cannot be tallied,” the Comelec’s ruling for the 1966 case read.
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‘Non-choice over choice’
In a press conference, Mindo criticized the initial ruling, arguing that it effectively elevated non-participation over actual votes.
“The will of the electorate is expressed by those who choose to vote. A total of 16,998 or nearly 17,000 students performed a deliberate, positive act of selecting a candidate for secretary,” he said.
“These [blank] ballots cannot be treated as votes against any candidate, nor can they be used to invalidate the outcome of an election. To count blank votes as determinative is to elevate non-choice over choice, which is contrary to the fundamental principles of democratic participation,” he added.
Mindo initially planned to submit a petition appealing his case, stating that the USEC 2011 and Central Student Constitution lacked rules on treating unanswered votes “as a threshold that must be overcome before a candidate may be proclaimed.”
The new CSC secretary also called out individuals who had advocated for voting “unanswered” during the election.
“If there are two competing candidates, yet you choose to not engage critically in evaluating them, then the burden of being informed is not anymore at the position of those candidates, but on you as a voter who decided to keep a blind eye and a mouth shut,” he said.
The four other winners of the CSC elections–Sean Capalar for public relations officer, Zedrich Daz for treasurer, Franz Salangsang for vice president and Annie Agon for president, were also proclaimed in the same Comelec resolution.
The CSC elections started on April 20 and concluded on 25 with the announcement of winners. With reports from Carlo Jose H. Ruga
