The Republican Party’s Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio trailed Sablan by 360 votes, garnering 1,919.
About 655 absentee ballots will be counted on Nov. 18. Tenorio still has a mathematical chance to overtake Sablan, but this may be statistically improbable.
Independent candidate John Oliver DLR. Gonzales finished third with 1,740 votes.
Retired Judge Juan T. Lizama, another Independent candidate, came in fourth with 1,611.
Sen. Luis P. Crisostimo, a Democrat who ran as an Independent, received 879 votes while the Democratic candidate, former Sen. David M. Cing, got 270.
Saipan Municipal Council member Felipe Atalig received 233 votes, businessman Chong Man Won garnered 219 while public school teacher John Davis finished last with 139.
Not yet over
In a phone interview, Sablan said he’s happy about the election results but he won’t claim victory until all the absentee ballots are counted.
“I am happy but it’s not over yet,” he told Variety.
If he is proclaimed the winner, he said the CNMI’s economy will be his priority.
“The real work begins in January. The islands’ economy is my priority…. We are an island in the middle of an ocean. We have limitations but we also have opportunities. We must advance our economy. And we must restore our good relationship with the U.S.,” he said.
Sablan is a former two-term Democratic member of the CNMI House of Representatives and was a special assistant to Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii. He also served as special assistant for management and budget for then-Gov. Froilan C. Tenorio.
House Floor Leader Joseph N. Camacho, a Republican who supported Sablan, said his cousin is the right man for the job.
“Though I am a Republican, I am convinced that he’s the right man to represent us in Washington, D.C. He has the energy and the right plan to help jump-start the economy of the CNMI,” he said.
“We are thankful and grateful to all who supported and voted for Kilili,” he added.
Seven hours
It took the seven members of the Commonwealth Election Commission seven hours to manually count all the ballots cast.
Chairwoman Frances Sablan convened the members around 12:15 a.m. and they completed the canvassing at 7:15 a.m.
Although the commission has counting machines, it wasn’t used during this year due to budget constraints.
The commission didn’t get enough funding to print the special ballots that can be read mechanically.
But Chairwoman Sablan said the commission will make sure that it will get enough funding support for machine tabulation when the CNMI general elections are held in Nov. 2009.
“Next year, it won’t happen [the manual counting of ballots]. We will get the money so we don’t have to be switching over to the manual mode,” she said.
Aside from the governor and the lt. governor, CNMI voters next year will also elect 20 House members, six senators, four mayors, 12 council members and two Board of Education members.
Voter turnout
Chairwoman Sablan said 9,394 votes were cast on the islands — 72 percent of the 12,947 registered voters.
In the 2007 midterm elections, the voter turnout was 69 percent.
The delegate-elect will be sworn in as member of the U.S. House of Representatives on Jan. 3, 2009.
His office will get about $1 million from the federal government.
Like other members of the U.S. Congress, his annual salary is $170,000.
The delegate can introduce bills and participate in committee deliberations but he has no voting rights on the floor.
