"There is a need to limit the number of candidates especially in the case of candidates for [national positions] because the election process becomes a [m]ockery even if those who cannot clearly wage a national campaign are allowed to run."
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"Their names would have to be printed in the [C]ertified List of Candidates, [V]oters Information Sheet and the [O]fficial Ballots. These would entail [a]dditional costs to the government. For the official ballots in automated counting and canvassing of votes, an additional page would amount to more or less FOUR HUNDRED FIFTY MILLION PESOS (₱450,000,000.00).
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xxx[I]t serves no practical purpose to allow those candidates to continue if they cannot wage a [decent campaign] enough to project the prospect of winning, no matter how slim.
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The preparation of ballots is but one aspect that would be affected by allowance of "nuisance candidates" to run in the elections. Our election laws provide various entitlements for candidates for public office, such as watchers in every polling place, watchers in the board of canvassers, or even the receipt of electoral contributions. Moreover, there are election rules and regulations the formulations of which are dependent on the number of candidates in a given election.
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Given these considerations, the ignominious nature of a nuisance candidacy becomes even more galling. The organization of an election with bona fide candidates standing is onerous enough. To add into the mix candidates with no serious intentions or capabilities to run a viable campaign would actually impair the electoral process. Ads.
This is not to mention the candidacies which are palpably ridiculous so as to constitute a one-note joke. The poll body would be bogged by irrelevant minutiae covering every step of the electoral process, most probably posed at the instance of these nuisance candidates. It would be a senseless sacrifice on the part of the State.
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Owing to the superior interest in ensuring a credible and orderly election, the State could exclude nuisance candidates and need not indulge in, as the song goes,
"their trips to the moon on gossamer wings."
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The Omnibus Election Code and COMELEC Resolution No. 6452 are cognizant of the compelling State interest to ensure orderly and credible elections by excising impediments thereto, such as nuisance candidacies that distract and detract from the larger purpose.
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[In the case at bar], there is no showing that any person is exempt from the limitations or the burdens which they create. (G.R. No. 161872 April 13, 2004)
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