Social media has become a battleground of sorts for all things election-related.

Attesting to this was the spread of several incidences involving allegations of ballot manipulation and anomalous voter receipts in several Philippine embassies during the overseas absentee voting held over the weekend.

One allegation in particular was a ballot manipulated to highlight the names of a specific pair of candidates. The grainy image, apparently taken with a mobile phone, showed the names of Liberal Party candidates Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo highlighted in yellow.

The same image had the names of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and his running mate Alan Peter Cayetano already shaded properly, apparently by the person who took the photo.

The alleged manipulated ballot was initially thought of to be taken during the absentee voting in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. However, the same photo was said to have also come from Taiwan.

Another rumor that also spread on social media was the missing name of Duterte on the voter’s receipt of one voter from Lebanon. The voter, named Alma Reem, alleged that only Cayetano’s name was present in the receipt, but not Duterte’s.

Reem’s original post has been removed, but in her subsequent posts, she insisted that her previous message wasn’t a fake.

Reem has yet to reply to ABS-CBN News’ request for clarification.

Incidentally, numerous similar allegations also appeared during the course of the two-day voting. One post alleged that Duterte’s name wouldn’t appear in the receipt and that it was Roxas who had already won in both UAE and in Taiwan.

It was also claimed that Duterte’s name was not counted in UAE.

Not true, says watcher

A man claiming to be part of a group called OFW Global Movement/PDP-Laban poll watcher in Abu Dhabi belied the rumors, saying they would have discovered the receipt anomaly immediately if it did happen.

In his reply to ABS-CBN News, John Vargas Adiova, who is the internal vice president of the OFW Global Cooperative Movement in Abu Dhabi, said that they were present at one of the precincts during voting and that the anomalous missing name in the receipt didn’t’ happen there.

Apart from the a technical issue with the vote counting machine (VCM), as well as an incident with a voter who came in late, no other issues were reported.

“[My] team and I [were] there. There was an incident only that the ballot was not read due to the machine scanner…. so we [decided] to change the machine, then all the subsequent ballots were read successfully,” Adiova said.

Adiova, who is also supporting Duterte’s campaign, said that while there is no way to avoid supporters from becoming defensive, he admits there are supporters who are just in to be popular on social media.

Still, he believes most overseas supporters are there for the long haul.

“No matter how unpleasant what other people say about Duterte, we still believe in him, in his character. He will be defended especially those from Hong Kong, Singapore, and China,” Adiova said.

READ: 'Daang Matuwid' as Mar and Leni's nicknames on ballots questioned

“Siege mentality”

In an interview with ABS-CBN News, Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesperson James Jimenez said these allegations seem to stem from what he describes as “siege mentality” where supporters go into a paranoid defensive mode when their candidate of choice is deemed under attack.

“This is an attempt to rally the base to create siege mentality. They magnify it on social media even if they don’t know if it really happened,” Jimenez said.

Jimenez pointed to several instances where such supporters claimed of embassies giving away campaign leaflets supporting one candidate or party, or that names were being removed on voter receipts.

“When we try to ask those people to produce evidence or when we go to places where the anomalies were said to have happened, we see nothing,” Jimenez said.

He also said many of the alleged problems that voters experienced were largely because the voter didn’t follow instructions, especially in using the official marker given by the board of election inspectors.

The ballots are also standard and unique. As such, all manipulated ballots, including those that are already pre-marked, are immediately rejected by the Comelec before they can be counted.

“Our instruction to voters is to reject ballot that’s given to them that have pre-marking. All ballots are verified because any form of manipulation is rejected,” Jimenez said.

So, was there a point for such paranoid behavior? Simply put, no. If there's anything that supporters can be confident with, it is that their candidate already has some lead over his rivals.