Commonwealth Election Commission Board Chair Jesus I. Sablan speaks to the other commissioners while Office of the Public Auditor investigator Edward Cabrera stands next to the ballot boxes with a heavy-duty metal cutter.
THE camps of the three gubernatorial candidates expressed concern about the Commonwealth Election Commission’s lengthy tabulation process that started on Tuesday evening and ended late in the afternoon on Wednesday.
“I think many of us who have been watching this election very closely have been dismayed by how long it took to get all of the ballots counted, and there are still some discrepancies, I think, in the numbers that have been reported, and a lot of confusion about what the final tallies are for each of the candidates,” said Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Tina Sablan in a press conference on Wednesday.
She said they would meet with the party’s election observers to debrief them and review their notes.
“Then [we will meet] with the staff of the election commission and anybody else that was involved in that process, to really look at what mistakes were made and how we can improve that process for the next election,” Sablan said.
“I really don’t understand why we still have glitches like this in our election process when we do this every two years. I think it is imperative that we revisit an issue that has come up before, and that is the lack of standard operating procedures at the election commission. I know we bring it up every two years, every time there’s an election, and it’s their one mandate,” she added.
“I know a lot of people work really hard and really did their best to make sure that this election was free and fair, but part of ensuring the fairness and freedom of an election is also making sure that the information is accurate, and that the public can trust the process…. So, there’s definitely room for improvement.”
Smoother process
In a press conference on Thursday, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said he and his team will see what can be done to ensure a smoother process for the runoff election.
His running mate, Senate Floor Leader Vinnie F. Sablan, said: “There was a lot of frustration, but I really empathize with the election commission, their director and the commissioners. There are a lot of moving parts in every election…. We don’t know what happened [but] I’m sure that they’ll come out and they’ll explain what happened with the machine, the ballots going through the machine and getting kicked back out and whatnot…. We’re hoping that those kinks are fixed before this runoff election [so that] we can get some results quicker.”
In a separate press conference, the Independent gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, noted that one of the ballot boxes had to be opened with a heavy-duty metal cutter during the tabulation at the multi-purpose center.
“I watched the lock being cut,” he said. “That has never, in the history of elections, happened before. I’ve never seen that happen before. The Democrats, and actually also our team, questioned that, so they’re going to [also] be looking into that…. There were 139 ballots that were supposedly in there, and it could have…changed the outcome of the Precinct 4 [House election]. Obviously with the gap between the…candidates, it’s not going to make a difference, but if it was lower than 139 and I was a candidate, I would protest that,” Palacios added.
According to the election board chairman, Jesus I. Sablan, “I’m assuming that [it] is a manufacturing defect.” One key was supposed to open two boxes, but it could open only one of them, he added.
Concerns
Palacios said the election board should know “that people are concerned…. There’s no room for error, but everybody on the three islands sat there waiting for results from seven o’clock in the evening until eleven o’clock the next day. Again, that has never occurred [before].”
The tabulation ended at past 4 Wednesday afternoon.
“I remember when we would manually count ballots,” Palacios said. “By two o’clock or three o’clock in the morning, we would know who won and who lost. This is unheard of,” he added, referring to the delayed tabulation.
“With the technology that we have today, this is unheard of. It’s a real anomaly, an unfortunate situation not just for the public but for the media and the candidates themselves.”
He noted that in the runoff election, the ballots will be counted manually.
“So now it’s going to be the accountability of the people who are going to count [the ballots] and the people that are going to monitor it. I hope that OPA and the Attorney General’s Office are on top of this to make sure that there’s no question about the integrity of the election,” Palacios said.
The delayed tabulation “was a disaster, to put it mildly,” he added.
“I’m just being honest about it. We didn’t raise hell or high water about it initially. We expressed our concern. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and I don’t think our community has either in the past.”
The Republican team of Torres and Sablan topped the gubernatorial election with the Independent tandem of Palacios and Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang finishing second. Democrat Rep. Sablan and running mate Rep. Leila Staffler came in third.
Because no one received a majority of the votes cast, the top two tandems — Torres-Sablan and Palacios-Apatang — will face each other in a runoff election.
