I offer the following observations with respect to the article in this paper, titled \u201cCEC mum on Dems\u2019 allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n
NMI Democrats delivered a straightforward letter to the Commonwealth Election Commission identifying substantial issues and requesting \u201cimmediate\u201d access to documents and records that potentially could confirm the regularity of the election or on the other hand demonstrate existence of grounds for an election contest.<\/p>\n
We did not ask the CEC to make copies of documents or do anything else that would require electricity.\u00a0 Emphasizing the fact that CEC has no generator is quite simply nothing more than an excuse and evasion.<\/p>\n
If we are to call it what it is, the CEC is stonewalling.<\/p>\n
For that matter, what excuse does the governor\u2019s office have for not supplying CEC with a generator not only during the election but continuously thereafter? It looks at least a bit like a calculated deprivation of electricity.<\/p>\n
Election contests have short, strict jurisdictional filing deadlines.\u00a0By refusing to provide answers to questions and access to documents promptly, the CEC effectively makes it impossible for concerned voters to make informed decisions on whether or not to file an election contest.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the CEC\u2019s own regulations make clear that citizen concerns about elections demand immediacy, not delay.\u00a0Regulations require the executive director or chairman of the commission to \u201cimmediately review the substance of the complaint\u201d upon \u201creceipt of an oral or written complaint.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Regulations also require the executive director to \u201cimmediately consult with the attorney general or an assistant attorney general to determine how the complaint should be investigated.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finally, regulations explicitly provide that \u201celection irregularity complaints shall be treated as extremely time sensitive\u201d and require the executive director or the commission to \u201cimmediately begin the procedure set forth in this part to investigate and prevent irregularities.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The regulation also explicitly states that it applies \u201cto complaints made both before and after an election has taken place.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Open Government Act does not require government agencies to wait 10 days before providing access to documents and records. It establishes a 10-day maximum deadline for compliance with a request.\u00a0The executive director\u2019s decision (or compliance with someone else\u2019s demand) to hide behind the OGA timetable is an obvious attempt to resist transparency.\u00a0The question is why is the CEC unwilling to bring everything out into the light of day immediately?\u00a0What do they need time for?<\/p>\n
We also might ask why it was that we went into the 2018 general election with four vacancies on the commission.<\/p>\n
Stephen C. Woodruff<\/strong> I offer the following observations with respect to the article in this paper, titled \u201cCEC…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[732,402,242,1947],"class_list":["post-289257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor","tag-cec","tag-ceo","tag-commonwealth-election-commission","tag-oga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCEO, NMI Democrats<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"