KOROR (Palau Horizon) — The Palau Elections Commission has set the recall election of Senate President Seit Andres and Sen. Joshua Koshiba for July 11.
The commission has ruled that the petitions filed by supporters of Sen.-elect Elias Camsek Chin’s against the two lawmakers met the requirements of the Constitution.
According to the Election Commission, it has determined the authenticity of the signatures.
The commission, after the review, said the petition for Andres’s recall contained 2,806 signatures while the petition for Koshiba had 2,887 signatures.
The commission also verified that the number of registered voters appearing on the Andres petition was 2,378 and on the Koshiba petition, 2,447.
According to the commission’s official records, Andres received 6,108 votes in the 2000 elections and Koshiba, 6,283 votes.
Under the Constitution, the Andres petition needed more than 1,527 signatures, while the Koshiba petition needed 1,571 signatures.
“The commission was faced with the enormous task of reviewing more than 5,600 signatures on the petitions within a very limited amount of time because the Constitution requires that if a recall petition is to be held, it must be held within 60 days of the petitions’ filing, or by July 15,” the statement said.
It added that the commission’s first task was to determine whether any names appeared on the petition more than once. If a name appeared several times on a petition, it was counted only once.
To verify the signatures, the commission conducted a review of the random sample of 338 signatures on the Andres petition and a random sample of 340 signatures on the Koshiba petition.
According to the statistical formula used by the commission, the review of the random sample indicated a 95 percent certainty that at least 2,161 signatures on the Andres petition are valid.
