The 2020 general election also hit the lowest voter turnout in the history of Guam with 51.96%, based on unofficial tally.
Many registered voters chose to stay home and forego voting in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic, GEC Executive Director Maria Pangelinan and Independent Member Patrick Civille said.
Civille also said this being a non-gubernatorial election year was also a factor.
The runoff election will be held on Nov. 17, GEC officials said.
A runoff election between the top two vote-getters is required when no one garners the required 50% plus one of all votes cast in the three-way delegate race.
San Nicolas, who bested Underwood and Republican Sen. Wil Castro, secured 45.95% of the total votes cast in the three-way delegate race.
The unofficial results from the Guam Election Commission for all 67 precincts counted, including off-island absentee votes received:
- Michael San Nicolas, Democrat: 13,000 (45.95%)
- Robert Underwood, Democrat: 9,300 (32.87%)
- Wil Castro, Republican: 5,942 (21%)
- Write-in votes: 51
- Total votes cast in the delegate race: 28,293
GEC will need to remind absentee voters to now mail the federal ballots that they received, specifically for this runoff election, GEC officials said.
Covid
The cancellation of the primary election because of the Covid-19 pandemic raised the possibility of this runoff election.
All candidates automatically advanced to the general election. In the delegate race, that meant having two instead of only one Democrat candidate, versus just one Republican.
Voters’ poor marking of the ovals in their ballot and the need to maintain social distance among precinct officials slowed the counting of ballots, which wrapped up at 7:23 a.m. Wednesday.
Dozens of ballots that voters improperly marked were rejected by the new, highly sensitive tabulators.
For example, the voters checked the ovals instead of shading them. Others were just slightly shaded.
Election commissioners led by Chairman Michael Perez and Vice Chairwoman Alice Taijeron reviewed the poorly marked ballots, and clarified the markings before the ballots were fed into the tabulators again for counting. This process took a long time.
Another factor that led to long hours of counting were the required social distancing to help stop the further spread of the virus that causes Covid-19.
GEC allowed only the first 30 precincts, with about 150 precinct officials, to get into the Election Return Center at the University of Guam Calvo Fieldhouse. Tables and chairs were spread out.
In previous election nights, all the 335 precinct officials were able to do their ballot reconciliation at the center at the same time.
By past midnight, some precinct officials were still waiting for their turn to enter the Election Return Center to start reconciling the ballots. At about 4 a.m., one precinct was still reconciling the ballots.
GEC wasn’t able to release the first batch of voting results until almost 1:30 a.m.
Vote counting wrapped up at 7:23 a.m. Wednesday, or 24 hours since polls opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday.
8 Democrats, 7 Republicans
Republicans gained additional seats in the 36th Guam Legislature, from the current five to seven.
That means Democrats will no longer have a supermajority of 10, but eight.
Five incumbents are leading the partial tally: Three Democrats and two Republicans.
In the presidential straw poll, former Vice President Joe Biden got more votes than President Donald Trump. Biden got 14,445 votes and Trump, 10,938 votes.
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