Independent candidate Tobias Dela Cruz Aldan was originally declared the winner over Ramona Taisakan Rebuenog of the Covenant Party by one vote in the election held on Nov. 7, 2009.
Rebuenog challenged the election results, arguing that illegal voters had cast ballots, and that if their votes were removed she would be declared the winner.
At trial, some of the illegal votes were subtracted from each candidate, resulting in Rebuenog being declared the winner by two votes.
On appeal, the Supreme Court held that commonwealth election law mandated a new election because it was not possible to know with certainty which candidate received the most legal votes.
In reaching its decision, the court first addressed Aldan’s arguments that Rebuenog was not a Northern Islands resident and was therefore not permitted to challenge the election results, and that she was not domiciled in the Northern Islands and therefore could not be a qualified mayoral candidate.
The trial court had rejected both of these arguments.
The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision, finding that Rebuenog had sufficient ties to the Northern Islands and that there was sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s ruling that she intended to return to Anatahan as soon as it is declared habitable by the CNMI government.
The court next examined the process that the trial court used to identify illegal voters — those not eligible to vote in the Northern Islands election yet voted anyway — and deduct their ballots from the election results.
After determining that 18 illegal voters had voted in the election, the trial court tried to subtract these illegal votes from the candidates who received them.
This was done so that illegal votes would not affect the election outcome.
The trial court was able to determine who 11 of the illegal voters had voted for in the election.
After subtracting these illegal votes, Rebuenog had more votes than Aldan, and so the trial court declared her the election winner.
The Supreme Court, however, ruled that the trial court improperly declared Rebuenog the winner.
The court determined that under commonwealth election law, an election winner must receive the most legal votes — votes cast by eligible voters.
If it cannot be determined which candidate received the most legal votes, then, by law, a new election is required.
The trial court determined that Rebuenog won the election by a total of 64 to 62 votes.
However, this total included seven votes cast by illegal voters that could not be subtracted from either candidate because the trial court could not determine which candidate had received these votes.
Since it was unknown for whom these illegal votes had been cast, the determination of the election became impossible.
That being the case, the Supreme Court ordered the Commonwealth Election Commission to conduct a new election as soon as possible.
In issuing its ruling the Court recognized the costs and hardships associated with a new election and the interests of the parties and all Northern Islands voters in having a mayor as soon as possible.
However, in making its ruling, the court stressed that “financial difficulties and expediency concerns, while important, must take a backseat to the right of Northern Islands voters to be represented by a candidate of their choosing.”
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