HARRY James Atalig Masga said he will file an election complaint in Superior Court pertaining to the 101 absentee ballots “selectively targeted” by the Commonwealth Election Commission.
Masga lost to his Republican opponent, Aubrey Hocog, by 35 votes in the Rota mayoral race. He garnered 470 votes while Hocog received 505.
The other Rota mayoral candidates were independents Sen. Teresita Santos who received 288 votes; Magdalena Mesngon, 159 votes; and Alfredo Taimanao, 23 votes.
According to the complaint sheet he has prepared, Masga alleged that “at least 101 absentee voters — comprising 20% of those requesting Rota absentee ballots — who sought to obtain absentee ballots and to cast votes for the various Rota mayoral candidates, were subjected to…arbitrary, disparate, unequal and selective targeting by CEC officials as to voter eligibility — as evinced, in part, by contrasting the numbers and voter percentages on Saipan (146/13%) and Tinian (57/15%) of eligibility-challenged absentee voters.”
Masga further alleged that CEC officials opted to “1) challenge/investigate individual members of singular Rota families who have for many years resided as single family units, sharing single residential addresses/mailing addresses/telephone numbers/contact details, at locales other than Rota — yet CEC officials did not, simultaneously opt, or deem it appropriate or necessary, to challenge/investigate one or more other individuals of these same single families living under one and the same roof at present and over many prior years.”
Masga likewise alleged that the CEC challenged and investigated only those of the 101 Rota absentee voters who sought and/or filed absentee ballots during or after 2014 — “giving no regard or attention to other CNMI voters who may or in fact have resided outside of the CNMI since well before 2014, yet now have or intend to vote absentee or otherwise in the CNMI’s…2022 general election.”
Masga also alleged that the CEC subjected Rota absentee voters to “arbitrary, disparate, unequal and selective treatment by delaying until the 11th hour of the 2022 general election to either initiate challenges to Rota absentee voters, notifying those Rota voters that they would be challenged/investigated…or completing the investigations on those Rota absentee voters.”
Masga said he will ask the court to conduct a hearing and determine all issues arising in the Rota mayoral election and compel the CEC to provide him immediate access to original copies of all pertinent ballots, lists, reports, investigative materials, conclusions, determinations and other materials in the possession and control of CEC officials.
Masga will likewise ask the court to 1) declare null and void the CEC’s rejection of the Rota absentee-voter-challenges and/or denial of those challenges, transmitted on Nov. 2, 2022, to the CEC on behalf of Alys T. Mundo, Roxanne Bell Ogo Holland and Analy Taimanao; 2) to declare null and void any CEC proceedings ostensible hearings, conducted on Nov. 18, 2022, respecting those Nov. 8, 2022, Rota absentee-voter-challenges; 3) to declare those challenges to be valid, lawful and requiring a full, fair and impartial hearing with adequate advance notice to such hearing time and date; or 4) to declare all such challenges to be of merit and therefore disqualifying all 80 plus voters challenged and declaring those ballots unlawful, null and void.
Masga said he will ask the court to declare CEC officials to have acted in breach of fiduciary duties, voting requisites, and constitutionally mandated provision of due process and equal protection.
He said the court should “command the CEC to immediately design and implement revised rules and procedures so as to fully comport with CEC’s fiduciary, electoral and constitutional duties.”
Lastly, he will ask the court to “provide further legal and/or equitable relief — including but not limited to declaratory relief, injunctive relief, mandamus relief, and/or invoke the court’s inherent authority to administer the proceedings before it, as the court deems necessary and/or appropriate, under circumstances.”
Asked for comment, CEC Executive Director Kayla Igitol said she had not seen the complaint yet.
Rota independent candidate, Harry James A. Masga, 2nd right, files his candidacy in July 2022 with his family and other supporters at the Commonwealth Election Commission.
