By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

SENATOR Adolpho Palacios, D-Ordot/Chalan Pago, has introduced a bill clarifying the local statute’s definition of “a majority of all votes cast” based on the court jurisprudence.
Only “actual votes” and “write-in votes” comprise “the total votes cast” in determining “the majority,” according to Bill 21, which seeks to adopt the courts’ 1998 and 2007 rulings.
In the election case that upheld the victory of Gov. Felix P. Camacho and Lt. Gov. Mike Cruz in the Nov. 7 gubernatorial race, the Supreme Court held that “overvotes” must be excluded in determining “50 percent plus one.”
The local tribunal’s ruling was consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1998 decision on the case involving former Gov. Carl T.C. Gutierrez and Jose Ada, which held that “blank votes” were spoiled ballots.  
“In each of the court’s decisions, it is clear that only actual votes and write-in votes shall comprise the total of all votes cast,” Bill 21 states.
The Organic Act requires that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor must garner at least “50 percent plus one of all votes cast for such office in order to be elected to such office.” 
Guam voters were much concerned with the definitions of “majority” and “total votes cast” when Democratic candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, former congressman Robert Underwood and Frank Aguon Jr., sought a runoff with the Republican team. Their respective attorneys had differing opinions on what factors should be included in the calculation of 50-percent-plus-1.
Existing Guam law, Public Law 25-146, addresses the issue of blank votes. It states that “a ballot that is blank or that is marked with more candidates or nominees than are to be nominated or elected is not to be included as part of the base for determining what constitutes a majority in elections requiring a candidate or nominee to garner a majority of votes in order to be elected.” This law was enacted as a result of the 1998 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
If enacted into law, Bill 21 would also apply to initiative measures.
“Blank votes, spoiled ballots, and all other ballots that do not bear the voters’ absolute and clear intention, that he or she is casting a yes or no, shall not be included in determining the 50 percent plus one of the total votes cast for such initiative,” the bill says.