{"id":379690,"date":"2022-11-15T06:06:12","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T20:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=379690"},"modified":"2022-11-15T06:06:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T20:06:12","slug":"election-count-was-a-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/election-count-was-a-disaster\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Election count was a disaster\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Arnold I. Palacios<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNever in the history of CNMI elections has members of all three islands have to wait until 7am, 11am the next morning for results. It\u2019s unheard of,\u201d said gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Arnold I. Palacios as he expressed his disappointment in this year\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n

To put it mildly, Palacios said, this year\u2019s general election\u2014specifically the tallying of votes\u2014was a disaster. Vote counting in the CNMI usually lasts until the early morning hours of Nov. 9 and may sometimes be done by 7am, but this year\u2019s tallying lasted until around noon.<\/p>\n

Speaking in a press conference last Thursday, Palacios said that not only was the delayed tallying an \u201cunfortunate\u201d event for the community, but it also raises concerns about the integrity of the election as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a disaster, to put it mildly. I\u2019m just being honest about it. We didn\u2019t raise hell about it, but we did raise concerns. I have never experienced anything like this and I don\u2019t think our community has in the past. I hope everybody on the Election Commission board knows that the people are concerned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Palacios noted the times when the CNMI had to manually count the ballots and even then, the commission didn\u2019t take that long to tally the votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sat there, everybody on the three islands sat there, waiting for results from 7pm to 11am the next day. That has never occurred [before]. I remember when we had to manually count ballots, by 2am, 3am, we knew who won and who lost,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Palacios also noted the concerns raised about a locked ballot box that had to be cut open, stating that that it is unheard of.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched that locked ballot box being cut. That too has never, in the history of elections, ever happened. The Democrats and even our team actually questioned them about that,\u201d Palacios stated.<\/p>\n

With today\u2019s technologies, Palacios said this year\u2019s general election was an anomaly and hopes that the runoff will not turn out the same way. \u201cThis is unheard of with the technologies that we have today. It was a real anomaly. I hope the runoff isn\u2019t the same way,\u201d Palacios said.<\/p>\n

The runoff election, set for Nov. 25, is expected to turn out differently as votes will be manually counted. Palacios said the only hope is that there is accountability for those counting these ballots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that OPA and the Attorney General\u2019s Office are on top of this, to make sure that there\u2019s no question about the integrity of the runoff election,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As for the Democratic Party\u2019s recent announcement of an Open Government Act request regarding the general election, Palacios said he is glad that the party is taking this initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still this question on the integrity [of the election] and I\u2019m glad that the Democrats have asked for a review of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Palacios continues to urge members of the community to support him, and his running mate, Saipan Mayor David M. Apatang, in the runoff election on Nov. 25. The pair is promising a stable, sustainable leadership.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are stable, we are sustainable. Together, we have the experience to navigate challenges and problems to aid in the recovery of our government. We\u2019re not glitz and glamour. We\u2019re here to provide efficient leadership to the Commonwealth. I want to thank the people for their support in this past election and even for supporting us throughout our political career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNever in the history of CNMI elections has members of all three islands have to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":379691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-379690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379690","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}