15% ballot shading threshold eyed for 2025 polls

MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) is eyeing a record low of 15 percent shading threshold in the 2025 elections.

Adopting a 15-percent shading threshold to avoid disenfranchisement of votes will be discussed today by the Comelec.

“At least for the elderly and persons with disabilities, even a dot can be counted now,” Comelec Chairman George Garcia said yesterday at a press conference.

“That 15 percent is enough because that’s the intention of the voter, to vote for the particular candidate. We are not supposed to suppress that intention,” he explained.

If the Comelec approves the recommended shading threshold, Garcia said it would be the lowest since the 20-percent threshold adopted by the poll body at the start of the automated elections in 2010.

To make the system simpler, shades lower than 15 percent will be considered a no-vote, he said.

Garcia said they trust the system that will be used in the 2025 polls so much, which is why they are looking into lowering the shading threshold.

Aside from preventing disenfranchisement of votes, lowering the threshold could also help avoid the filing of electoral protests, he said.

“The 50-percent (shading threshold) was an issue before and it became a basis for filing of cases,” he recalled.

Garcia said the Comelec encourages filing of election protests to settle doubts.

Lowering the shading threshold is not new, as it is the same old rule on ballot appreciation, Comelec Commissioner Ernesto Maceda Jr. noted.

Political parties and candidates should teach voters how to properly shade the ballot, Garcia said.

The Comelec is also in the process of reproducing data damaged during the onslaught of Severe Tropical Storm Kristine, he noted.

Meanwhile, the National Movement for Free Elections is supporting the move to lower the shading threshold.