AGO seeks dismissal of poll suit

The Attorney General’s Office yesterday asked the Superior Court to junk the civil case against the Board of Elections filed by a losing candidate for Rota representative to the Board of Education.

In a court hearing before Associate Judge Juan T. Lizama, government lawyers argued that Juanita M. Taisacan, a write-in candidate in the race, should have sued her rival, incumbent BOE member Marja Lee Taitano, and not the election’s board.

The AGO also claimed that the complaints against the board was untimely filed, and thus should be dismissed by the court for lack of jurisdiction.

But Joey Arriola, lawyer of Ms. Taisacan, said his client made a proper move to file the lawsuit against the election’s board since it is the one that committed the error in coming up with the final polls’ results.

“We chose to have the board defend this case because they made the error, and not Marja Lee Taitano. She didn’t do anything wrong,” he told in an interview after the hearing, adding that a government agency is not immune from lawsuits.

But the AGO’s argument appeared to weigh in heavily as Judge Lizama placed the motion under advisement while Mr. Arriola amends the complaint.

The case stemmed from Ms. Taisacan’s protest against the results of the Rota representative to BOE last month in which she petitioned the court to order the election’s board to conduct a recount and tally all votes cast in the Nov. 6 polls.

Although not an official candidate, she claimed that the board committed a mistake in the tabulation of votes that drastically changed the outcome of the results which gave Ms. Taitano a margin of 12 votes over her votes of 333.

Last week, Judge Lizama denied the AGO’s motion to disqualify Mr. Arriola from representing Ms. Taisacan as he ruled that it does not pose a conflict of interest to the lawyer’s attorney-client relationship with the Senate.

Mr. Arriola serves as Senate legal counsel under an independent contract he signed with the Legislative Bureau a few months ago.

This position, according to Judge Lizama, does not show that his representation of Ms. Taisacan against the Board of Elections in the lawsuit is directly adverse to the Senate.

He also noted that the court can’t disqualify Mr. Arriola at this time or for any potential future conflict, whose only solution lies with the Senate.