She noted that compared to the previous elections, this year’s tabulation went smoothly because the CNMI purchased two new tabulation machines.
In the 2018 elections, because the CEC machines were damaged by Super Typhoon Yutu, the commission had to borrow machines from Guam
“The difference [this year] is we got better machines, and you can see the outcome. We actually made pretty good time than we [did] two years ago,” Igitol said.
“Everything went really [well]. It was slow at first, but it picked up at the end. There weren’t many problems.”
Igitol did note that there was a bit of pause during the count due to a paper jam.
A ballot that was fed through one of the machines crumpled up, she explained.
“[The machine] did get a paper jam, but we were able to fix that,” Igitol said.
Commonwealth Election Commission officials review ballots early Wednesday morning at the multi-purpose center. Photo by K-Andrea Evarose S. Limol
Ballots with unclear markings were brought to the election commissioners to review.
Ballots that were either unclear, blank, or showed an overvote were also reviewed by the commissioners who determined whether these should be counted or not.
If any part of the ballot was determined to be unclear, blank, or was an overvote, that particular section was not counted while the rest of the votes on the ballot were counted.
The entire ballot was not thrown out if only a section of it showed errors.
On election night, Nov. 3, the tabulation of the votes at the multi-purpose center started at about 10 p.m. and was completed around 5 a.m.
On Nov. 17, the election commissioners will reconvene to count the absentee ballots received during the mandated 14-day period.
The additional 14 days is a sunset provision that was mandated by a law passed by the 21st Legislature due to the uncertainty with the postal system as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Once these remaining absentee votes have been received and counted by the commission, the CEC will announce the official results of the 2020 midterm elections also on Nov. 17.
