More than 1,000 absentee ballots were mailed, but not all are expected to be returned.
The current tally has Fitial and his running mate Lt. Gov. Eloy Inos with 6,313 votes, or 52 percent, while Hofschneider and his running mate Speaker Arnold I. Palacios getting 5,812.
The absentee ballots will be tabulated at the multi-purpose center in Susupe.
CEC Executive Director Robert A. Guerrero was not available for interview on Friday. Variety was told he went to the CNMI’s other main islands to prepare for today’s absentee counting.
As in the runoff, today’s counting will be done by hand under the supervision of the election commissioners and the Office of the Attorney General.
The voter’s affidavit must first appear on the absentee vote package and the ballot must be hidden before the commissioners authenticate it.
In the 2005 gubernatorial election, nearly 90 percent of over 1,600 absentee ballots were counted.
Fitial was elected with an 84-vote lead against Hofschneider.
Under the Northern Mariana Islands Election Reform Act of 2000, any registered commonwealth voter may contest an election results based on five grounds: the person declared elected to an office will not be eligible for that office at the beginning of his term; the candidate has given to an election official anything of value to procure his election; illegal votes were cast sufficient to change the result of the election of any person who has been declared elected — illegal votes mean any vote cast by a person who is not qualified to vote because of failure to meet age, domiciliary or residency requirements or has cast more than one ballot in the same election; the commission in the conduct of the election or arithmetical tabulation of votes made errors sufficient to change the final result of the election of any person who has been declared elected; and actual fraud by any person in the voting process, in the conduct of the election or in the tabulation of the votes sufficient to have changed the outcome of the election.
A written complaint for an election contest must be filed in Superior Court.
