KOROR (Palau Horizon) — Senate President Seit Andres and Sen. Joshua Koshiba have asked the Supreme Court to stop the Palau Elections Commission from holding the recall election scheduled on July 11, saying that the process of the petition’s circulation and collection of signatures was done fraudulently.
In their motion for a temporary restraining order and declaratory and injunctive relief, the two senators alleged that the methods used by the Palau Elections Commission to authenticate the signatures “were flawed and insufficient.”
They further claimed that the persons who initiated the recall petition were unidentified and were not registered voters.
“The petitions are accompanied by no declaration, affidavit, or other attestation stating under penalty or perjury or otherwise that any person who signed either petition was required to show or did show reasonable proof of identity before signing or that the circulator personally knew the person whose signatures is affixed to the petition,” stated the complaint.
The complaint added that a press release dated June 6 issued by the commission lacked sufficient details in describing the procedures for verifying the petitions.
The plaintiffs said they have obtained declarations from voters wanting their names eliminated from the petition “because they were misled on the real purpose of the petitions.”
Some of the witnesses testified that they were made to believe that the sole purpose of the petition they signed was to swear in Sen.-elect Elias Camsek Chin.
Some claimed that the purpose was inadequately explained nor did they understand the purpose of the petition.
Some declared that they wanted their names removed from the petition “because they were coerced, threatened or otherwise pressured into signing the petition and did not sign voluntarily,” the complaint said.
Others said the signatures appearing on the petition next to their names were not theirs.
The plaintiffs said it was the commission’s duty to ensure that proper procedures were followed in accepting and verifying the petition.
“By the commission’s actions in violation of the Constitution, plaintiffs are unjustly placed in jeopardy of being removed from office they lawfully hold,” the complaint stated.
Andres and Koshiba also argued that the signatures gathered by the petitioners fall well behind the required minimum number.
They added that the commission should have taken reasonable steps to establish the validity of the petition and ensure that the signatures were not collected by forgery, threat or under duress.
The commission, the plaintiffs also alleged, failed to ensure that the signatures of the registered voters were counted only once.
The plaintiffs said the commission used an arithmetic formula eliminating 15.24 percent of the signatures.
It added that the commission also concealed its method in verifying the signatures, refusing in spite of repeated requests by plaintiffs to disclose the names of the persons whose signatures were invalidated.
“The potential result of the unconstitutional recall election is the improper removal of one or both of the plaintiffs from office as senators…thereby depriving one or both plaintiffs his office, salary, benefits and irreparably harming his reputation as an elected representative of the people of Palau,” the complaint stated.
