Pacific Magazine > Magazine > January 1, 2007

Guam

Camacho’s Win Disputed

Guam Courts Kept Busy

By Story and Photos BY FRANK WHITMAN, HAGATNA

Felix Camacho (far right) and Mike Cruz celebrate their election victory.

While the Guam Election Commission has certified Governor Felix Camacho as the winner of the November 7th election, it took over a month for the result to be settled in the Supreme Court of Guam. According to the results from the commission, Camacho and lieutenant governor candidate, Mike Cruz garnered about 860 votes more than his opponent, former delegate to the U.S. Congress, Robert Underwood and his running mate, Frank Aguon. 

 

Three days after the election, Underwood held a press conference at which he stood with former Governor Carl Gutierrez, who had challenged Underwood for the Democratic nomination in the primary election; Senator B.J. Cruz, who had been Gutierrez’s running mate in the primary; former Senator Francis Santos, a Democrat who had been the running mate of current Lieutenant Governor Kaleo in a Republican primary challenge to Camacho; and team of prominent Guam attorneys. At the conference, Underwood announced that he would seek a runoff election, as required by law, because Camacho had not garnered a majority of the votes cast.

The point of contention was whether ballots on which voters marked more than one team of candidates—“overvotes” —should be counted as “votes cast” (expanding the number needed for a majority, not as votes for any candidate). If overvotes are counted, Camacho’s vote total is 49.6 percent of the total; without overvotes, it is 50.2 percent.

Robert Underwood (at podium) and running mate Frank Aguon disputed the results of the election.

Underwood’s legal team contends that federal law preempts a 2000 Guam law which clearly states that overvotes not be counted, and mandates that the overvotes be counted. It claims past practice and some court cases support their argument, one of which involves a challenge brought against Gutierrez in the 1998 election by challenger, former Governor Joseph Ada and Camacho, his running mate at the time. “This court is being asked to interpret two words, ‘votes cast,’” states the Underwood team’s court brief. “Any doubts regarding what constitutes a vote should be resolved in favor of preserving that right (to vote).”

Camacho’s attorneys cited the recent Guam law, claim that federal law does not automatically preempt local law, say that the federal requirement is not clear, and interprets the court cases differently than the opposition. “An ‘overvote is simply not a ‘vote cast,’” Camacho’s attorneys respond. “Neither former election commission practice, a reversed [federal appeals court] case nor vague arguments about the Organic Act [the federal statute establishing Guam’s government] can change that.”

A second case was brought by Chamorro indigenous rights advocates Robert Benavente and Trini Torres, both candidates for the Guam Legislature. They appealed a lower court decision, and their case was initiated after the September 2nd primary election. It asked that the primary be nullified because of improper procedures. Those include the use of electronic voting machines (not used during the general election), inadequate ballot instructions, vote tallies that did not match the number of voters and the destruction of spoiled ballots before a recount could take place. “The failure of the [election commission] to follow the law makes it impossible to ascertain who was elected to office,” contends the plaintiffs’ brief.

Torres was successful in the primary election, but said the case is a matter of principle. “I stopped campaigning because I do not want to validate the primary election,” she said. “I want independence for our people. How can we proceed with independence when we have so many things [wrong with the election process]?”

Guam Election Commission Director Gerald Taitano is scheduled to appear in court in March to face misdemeanor criminal charges related to the destruction of the spoiled primary ballots.

The campaign itself featured major efforts by both candidates to court Guam’s Filipino (more than 25 percent of the population) voters. Advertisements in both print and broadcast media alleged that Underwood was anti-Filipino (similar allegations made covertly contributed to his loss to Camacho in 2002) and were countered with endorsements for Underwood from local and national Filipino leaders as well as rebuttals from Underwood.

Meanwhile also in the polls, Alicia Limtiaco, a private attorney and former prosecutor in the attorney general’s office, garnered 56 percent of the vote to become Guam’s second elected attorney general. She defeated Vernon Perez and a write-in campaign by incumbent Douglas Moylan. Moylan had placed third in the primary election and so was not on the November ballot. Less than 7 percent of the votes in the race were write-ins.

In the race for the 15-seat legislature, the Republicans’ majority dropped from nine to eight. They have announced that Mark Forbes will continue as legislative speaker. The top five vote-getters included incumbent Republicans Eddie Calvo and Ray Tenorio, incumbent Democrats Judi Won Pat and Rory Respicio, and first-time candidate Republican Jim Espaldon, the son of the late former Senator Ernesto Espaldon.

Delegate to the U.S. Congress, Madeleine Bordallo ran unopposed for the second time and gained her third term.

Two voter initiatives on the ballot were defeated amidst myriad court challenges and rulings. Opponents of both Proposal A to raise Guam’s legal drinking age to 21 and of Proposal B to legalize slot machine gambling at the Guam Greyhound Park dog-racing track had gone to court claiming the election commission had not followed proper procedures. The court agreed in one case and ordered that Proposal A be removed from the ballot, then recognized that it was too late to do so, but that the results should not be certified. A similar case involving the gambling initiative was unresolved by election time and remains so. Gambling proponents have begun efforts to place a similar initiative on the ballot in the next election.

The election also saw the only two incumbents who chose to run return to the Education Policy Board. Peter Alexis Ada has been selected to be the new board chairman.

Nine candidates were on the ballot for the three seats up for reelection of the five on the Consolidated Commission on Utilities. Incumbents Simon Sanchez and Benigno Palomo were overwhelmingly returned to their positions and Eloy Hara was elected to the third seat which was vacant.