{"id":332936,"date":"2020-11-05T06:02:35","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T20:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=332936"},"modified":"2020-11-05T06:02:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-04T20:02:35","slug":"cec-chief-plans-to-retire-after-this-election-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/cec-chief-plans-to-retire-after-this-election-is-over\/","title":{"rendered":"CEC chief plans to retire after this election is over"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commonwealth Election Commission executive director Julita A. Villagomez is going to retire when everything is over with this year\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n

Villagomez confirmed yesterday with Saipan Tribune that, as soon as they close this year\u2019s election, she\u2019s leaving CEC, where she has worked for over 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love my job,\u201d said the teary-eyed Villagomez when asked how she feels about leaving CEC, just soon after the completion of the tabulation of ballots at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe early Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Villagomez said she is confident that even without her, the CEC will be fine as the staff are well trained with what they\u2019ve been through.<\/p>\n

The November 2018 general elections was very challenging to Villagomez and staff as it was done a month after Super Typhoon Yutu devastated the CNMI. This year, the battle-tested Villagomez and staff faced an equally difficult job of overseeing an election in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic situation.<\/p>\n

For this year\u2019s elections, Villagomez said they\u2019re just waiting for the arrival of the remaining absentee ballots on Nov. 11 to complete the process.<\/p>\n

She said the election went pretty smooth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Julita A. Villagomez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot faster than before,\u201d she said, adding that the two newly purchased tabulating machines were a great help.<\/p>\n

Villagomez said they only had minor issues. \u201c[Just] a little complaint, just like when people were displaced from the typhoon and they thought they\u2019d get automatically transferred to a certain precinct,\u201d she said, adding that such complaints were immediately corrected.<\/p>\n

Villagomez said that what delayed the tabulation was when the machines spat out some ballots and then the commissioners had to go through with each one and make a decision.<\/p>\n

Although she has not seen the actual figures, Villagomez said the election\u2019s turnout looks good to her. Just from the early voting, there were over 8,000 voters, she noted.<\/p>\n

Villagomez started serving as CEC executive director in 2014. In September 2016, the CEC board unanimously appointed her as executive director.<\/p>\n

Villagomez first worked at CEC as an administrative assistant in 1988, then she became an administrative officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Commonwealth Election Commission executive director Julita A. Villagomez is going to retire when everything is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":332959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[732],"class_list":["post-332936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-cec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332936","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}