SENATOR Paul A. Manglona has asked the Commonwealth Election Commission to stop the voter registration screening process for 101 absentee voters whose registration was challenged by Rota Republicans.
In his letter to CEC Chairman Jesus I. Sablan and Executive Director Kayla S. Igitol, the Rota Independent said he was making the request on behalf of the CNMI general public, including his constituents on Rota, because they are being “unequally targeted.”
In an interview, Manglona said of the 493 off-island voters from Rota who had requested for absentee ballots, only the registration of 101 “non-Republican” absentee voters was challenged.
He said if it’s really necessary to challenge the registration of absentee voters, “please challenge all of them and not just the non-Republican voters.”
He said the 101 Rota absentee voters “or 20% of the total absentee voters” were “targeted in an extraordinarily unequal and/or arbitrary fashion.”
On Tinian, he said, only 57 or 15% of the 376 absentee voters were challenged, and on Saipan, only 146 or 13% of the 1,067 were challenged.
Manglona said the CEC also delayed the screening process “until the 11th hour of the general election.”
He said the election commission could have contacted the 101 non-GOP absentee voters as early as January 2022, but the CEC waited until October or just a few weeks before the Nov. 8 election to notify the absentee voters of the residency challenge.
He said the 101 Rota absentee voters received the CEC materials in separate envelopes “on wide-ranging dates.” Some of them received only the provisional ballots with no explanation, as to the purpose, intent, or meaning of “provisional ballots,” he added.
According to Manglona, it appears that the voter registration screening process has been conducted “in a manner contravening and/or violative of long-established protections against arbitrary, disparate, untimely, unreasonable, capricious, and/or incomplete provision or withholding of full and equal treatment, and full and equal procedural/substantive due process.”
He said these protections are guaranteed and mandated by CNMI laws, including Article I of the CNMI Constitution.
Variety was unable to get a comment from the election commission.
Paul A. Manglona
