Court halts Precinct 1 lottery

The Superior Court has issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Commonwealth Election Commission from conducting a lottery of Precinct 1 candidates for the House of Representatives until Wednesday.

Associate judge Juan T. Lizama released the order at the request of Covenant Party candidate Rose Nelly T. Ada-Hocog, whose candidacy had been rejected by the election commission over alleged ineligibility.

Ada-Hocog, through attorneys Matthew T. Gregory and Perry B. Inos, sued the commission to question the legality of its decision. She also requested the restraining order, without which she would be excluded from the lottery that would determine the position of Precinct 1 candidates on the Nov. 5, 2005 election ballot.

Lizama noted that allowing the commission to proceed with the lottery while Ada-Hocog’s case was pending would cause her immediate and irreparable harm. “[T]he lottery and the subsequent printing of the ballots may result in a situation where the commission is without funds to reprint the ballots, denying plaintiff of her remedy,” he said.

In a complaint filed on Aug. 26, 2005, Gregory and Inos maintained that the CEC’s refusal to certify Ada-Hocog’s nomination was unconstitutional and violated Public Law 12-18. They added that contrary to the election commission’s position, Ada-Hocog met all the requirements for a candidate for the House of Representatives, including those requirements involving residency and registration.

The election commission denied Ada-Hocog’s candidacy based on its interpretation of P.L. 12-18 that a candidate of the House must be registered to vote in the election district where he or she is a candidate for at least two years immediately preceding the date of election.

Ada-Hocog’s name was stricken off the registered voters’ list after she failed to vote in the 2003 election. Therefore, there is no way she can meet the two-year registration requirement in time for the November election, the CEC said.

Gregory and Inos argued, however, that the Constitution did not contain any requirement that a candidate for the House be a registered voter for two years.

“The Constitution does not provide any basis for a two-year period for registering to vote. The ‘two-year registration requirement’ in the statute is not a residency or a domicile requirement within the meaning of the Constitution. A statute should be interpreted in keeping with the Constitution,” said Ada-Hocog’s attorneys.

They asked the court to provide an official interpretation of the law, as it applies to Ada-Hocog’s eligibility to run as a candidate for Precinct 1. They also urged the court to order the election commission to certify Ada-Hocog’s candidacy and to place her on the ballot for the Nov. 5 election, as well as to award her appropriate damages.