The Supreme Court ruled that the COMELEC should have rejected election returns from certain precincts that showed block voting for all candidates of one party and zero votes for all candidates of the other party. Such an outcome was improbable and suggested fraud. While fraud would typically be handled in lower courts, the irregularity was so clear from the face of the returns themselves that the COMELEC should not have accepted them at prima facie value and given them preliminary recognition. However, the final determination on the validity of the votes could still be made in the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
The Supreme Court ruled that the COMELEC should have rejected election returns from certain precincts that showed block voting for all candidates of one party and zero votes for all candidates of the other party. Such an outcome was improbable and suggested fraud. While fraud would typically be handled in lower courts, the irregularity was so clear from the face of the returns themselves that the COMELEC should not have accepted them at prima facie value and given them preliminary recognition. However, the final determination on the validity of the votes could still be made in the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
The Supreme Court ruled that the COMELEC should have rejected election returns from certain precincts that showed block voting for all candidates of one party and zero votes for all candidates of the other party. Such an outcome was improbable and suggested fraud. While fraud would typically be handled in lower courts, the irregularity was so clear from the face of the returns themselves that the COMELEC should not have accepted them at prima facie value and given them preliminary recognition. However, the final determination on the validity of the votes could still be made in the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
The Supreme Court ruled that the COMELEC should have rejected election returns from certain precincts that showed block voting for all candidates of one party and zero votes for all candidates of the other party. Such an outcome was improbable and suggested fraud. While fraud would typically be handled in lower courts, the irregularity was so clear from the face of the returns themselves that the COMELEC should not have accepted them at prima facie value and given them preliminary recognition. However, the final determination on the validity of the votes could still be made in the Senate Electoral Tribunal.
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LAGUMBAY vs.
COMELEC G.R. No. L-25444| January 31, 1966. FACTS • This petition prays for revision of an order of the Commission on Elections declining to reject the returns of certain precincts of some municipalities in Mindanao. • It appears that the election returns of certain precincts in some municipalities were being put into question because all the candidates of Nacionalista Party did not receive a single vote. • The COMELEC declined to reject the said election returns. With this, petitioner Wenceslao Lagumbay appealed to the Supreme Court. ISSUE
Whether or not a block voting or a zero vote is
probable to be achieved in one precinct.
NO. • For it is not likely, in the ordinary course of things, that all the electors of one precinct would, as one man, vote for all the eight candidates of the Liberal Party, without giving a single vote to one of the eight candidates of the Nacionalista Party. Such extraordinary coincidence was quite impossible to believe, knowing that the Nacionalista Party had and has a nationwide organization, with branches in every province, and was, in previous years, the party in power in these islands.
RULING • It must be noted that this is not an instance wherein one
return gives to one candidate all the votes in the precinct, even as it gives exactly zero to the other. This is not a case where some senatorial candidates obtain zero exactly, while some others receive a few scattered votes. Here, all the eight candidates of one party garnered all the votes, each of them receiving exactly the same number, whereas all the eight candidates of the other party got precisely nothing. • The main point to remember is that there is no block-voting nowadays. What happened to the vote of the Nacionalista inspector? There was one in every precinct. Evidently, either he became a traitor to his party, or was made to sign a false return by force or other illegal means. If he signed voluntarily, but in breach of faith, the Nacionalista inspector betrayed his party; and, any voting or counting of ballots therein, was a sham and a mockery of the national suffrage.
RULING Hence, denying prima facie recognition to such returns on the ground that they are manifestly fabricated or falsified, would constitute a practical approach to the Commission's mission to insure free and honest elections. • Frauds in the holding of the election should be handled — and finally settled — by the corresponding courts or electoral tribunals. That is the general rule, where testimonial or documentary evidence, is necessary; but where the fraud is so palpable from the return itself (res ipsa loquitur — the thing speaks for itself), there is no reason to RULING accept it and give it prima facie value. • At any rate, fraud or no fraud, the verdict in these fifty precincts may ultimately be ascertained before the Senate Electoral Tribunal. All we hold now, is that the returns show "prima facie" that they do not reflect true and valid reports of regular voting. The contrary may be shown by candidate Climaco — in the corresponding election protest. Therefore, it is clearly impossible and improbable that no one RULING from the eight candidates of the Nacionalista Party received from any voter in the said precincts.
