McPhetres recommends runoff polls

College instructor Sam McPhetres said a bill mandating the holding of a runoff election should have been passed by the Legislature to ensure that the gubernatorial candidate wining the general elections has the majority mandate from the people.

“It made great sense. It’s Norita bill. I think it should have been passed,” said McPhetres.

In an interview yesterday, Rep. Clyde Norita said he introduced the bill sometime in February or March this year, aiming to hold a runoff election in case the election pits more than two gubernatorial candidates.

“The main intent is that in case of a four-way race, like we had this year, the top two would go into a run-off election. The point is, the winner should get the majority vote or 50 plus 1 percent of the votes,” said Norita.

Based on a partial tally of Saturday’s election, the gubernatorial tandem of Benigno R. Fitial and Tim P. Villagomez is leading but with only 3,497 votes or 28 percent of the total votes cast.

Independent gubernatorial tandem Heinz S. Hofschneider and David Apatang ranked second with 3,3371 votes or about 27 percent, while GOP’s Gov. Juan N. Babauta and Diego T. Benavente got 3,228 votes or 26 percent. Placing fourth is Democratic Party’s gubernatorial team of Froilan C. Tenorio and Antonio Santos, with 2,256, or 18 percent.

“Without a majority vote as in this case, you’re saying that 70 percent of voters do not support the winning candidate,” he said.

In his bill, Norita said that the runoff election must be held 45 days before the general elections. The top two winners in that election would fight it out during the general elections.

“I wholeheartedly support that bill. I consulted with a lot of people and they agree that the governor should be voted in by the majority of people,” he said.

In other states in the mainland, he said, runoff elections are held either after the election or before it.

Norita said the counting of absentee ballot should also be done before the general elections so that the final counting of all votes are done at the same time.

This year’s gubernatorial election will largely be decided by the absentee ballots, which will be tabulated on Nov. 19, as the top three candidates have very small margins of the votes.

Fitial has a 126-vote advantage over his closest rival, Hofschneider, while Babauta is not very far behind with 269 votes less than Fitial and 143 less votes than Hofschneider.

There are 1,602 absentee ballots.