Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Missing the bota

It seems Gregorio "Kilili" Sablan and Pedro Agulto Tenorio 'should' be headed for a runoff in the Delegate race in the Northern Marianas, "Where America votes first". Both men are leading in incomplete results from the Commonwealth Election Commission, since neither has 25 percent of the vote, nevermind fifty percent.

But there was no CNMI Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives when a 50 percent plus one vote for Governor and Lieutenant Governor was approved by voters last year.

Absentee ballots will be counted Nov. 18, according to the Saipan Tribune. Agulto would have to make up 360 votes to catch Kilili.

The Tribune says 650 absentee ballots have been received so far, while the Marianas Variety says there are 1,112 absentee voters.

It seems Tenorio is still the only candidate who submitted finance reports to the Federal Election Commission.

6 comments:

Saipan Writer said...

Matt Kaye reported that Lizama's report is also on file.

and the others may have sent theirs in by snail mail, which would account for not yet being available via the internet.

just fyi...

Saipan Writer said...

Oh, btw, Matt said that Lizama spent $52,000, of which $48,000 was "self-generated" meaning out of his own pocket. The rest was from a fund-raiser.

I hope we change the law so that the we have run-off elections for this post as well, requiring at least 50% of the vote seems reasonable to me.

Anonymous said...

I read on one of the saipan blogspots that Greg Sablan had some sort of drug possesion conviction. Was that an anecdotal smear tactic or is there some truth to it?

Anonymous said...

No conviction that I know of.

Past allegations (info on the street, no arrests) of use and distribution of ice, yes. Fairly well grounded talk, imho.

That was in the late 80's and early 90's, as I recall.

Another concern I had was that Kilili worked for Senator Inouye, who is very connected to Wespac. Given the allegations of corruption and influence (and anti-conservation/anti marine monument activities) against Wespac, this connection also troubles me...

But Greg has done an excellent job at the election commission. And he's smart.

So we'll see...

KAP said...

I've heard the stories. The arrests and/or convictions ten or fifteen years ago were just the tip of a very large 'iceberg'. You'd be amazed... or maybe not.

It seems better nowadays, but that's a very insidious drug-- easy to get hooked quickly. I'm basically libertarian about what people do in their private lives, but I lean towards drawing and quartering for ice peddlers.

1nce a week... said...

In other news, more on the Saipanda issue go to http://1nceaweekresolution.blogspot.com/ thanks