Saipan’s Precinct 1, which includes the villages of San Antonio, San Vicente and Koblerville, had the most registered number of voters at 4,331 when the commission ended the registration on Sept. 18.
Precinct 3, which covers Oleai and Garapan, has 3,363 registered voters while the newly created Precinct 5 or the Kagman area registered 2,380 voters.
Precinct 2, the Chalan Kanoa/Susupe area, registered 1,246 voters.
Tanapag, San Roque, Capital Hill and the Northern Islands, which form Precinct 4, have 1,768 registered voters.
Tinian has 1,436 while Rota has 1,622.
The commission has already temporarily relocated its office to the multi-purpose center in Susupe to prepare for the canvassing of ballots for the Nov. 7 elections.
Robert Guerrero, the executive director of the commission, said at least 18,000 ballots were printed in Alabama for this year’s elections.
The ballots are designed to be read by the counting machines that will be utilized to speed up the election results.
Ballots for last year’s first U.S. congressional election in the CNMI were manually counted.
The commission is also preparing to release the list of identified polling places all over the islands ahead of Election Day.
A total of 109 candidates are vying for 43 elected positions this year, including that of the governor, the lt. governor, 20 House members, six senators, four mayoral posts, two members of the Board of Education and nine municipal council members.
The ruling Covenant Party is endorsing the re-election of Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos.
The Republican Party’s standard bearers are Rep. Heinz S. Hofschneider and running mate Speaker Arnold I. Palacios.
There are two Independent gubernatorial teams: former Sen. Juan T. Guerrero and running mate House Floor Leader Joseph N. Camacho, and former Sen. Ramon S. Deleon Guerrero and running mate former Education Commissioner David M. Borja.
This year’s winning gubernatorial ticket must secure 50 percent of the votes plus 1. Otherwise a runoff between the top two candidates will be held.
