Marshalls Election Mess Gets Worse
Opposition leaders in the
Opposition Aelon Kein Ad (Our Islands) party officials said they still had the required 17 senators-elect to form a government when Parliament meets in early January, and will also file court challenges to what they say was improper ballot counting nearly three weeks after the vote.
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“We believe that we won fair and square,” Kwajalein Senator-elected Tony deBrum told a gathering of AKA leaders yesterday. “Four seats were stolen from us last night.”
But adding to the confusion over who has won and lost, nearly three weeks after the election, the government¹s Electoral Administration has not issued a final unofficial result, and the government¹s official Web site has not updated since incomplete preliminary results were posted November 27, although all votes have now reportedly been counted.
Poor management of the election on November 19 and tabulation delays and lack of timely release of voting data to the public have marred the national election, the eighth since constitutional government began in 1979.
Chief Electoral Officer Carl Alik did not respond to requests for information on Friday and Saturday.
Opposition party poll watchers staged a walkout at the official counting headquarters over night Thursday, arguing that the law forbids votes cast in remote outer islands to be counted in Majuro two-and-a-half-weeks after the election. Although complaints from Speaker Litokwa Tomeing who joined the opposition party just before the election led to a brief halt in tabulation of these disputed outer island votes Thursday night, Internal Affairs Secretary Amram Mejbon announced late Thursday night that Attorney General Posesi Bloomfield had ordered the tabulation to continue.
Rosita Capelle, poll watching for her husband incumbent cabinet minister Donald Capelle, complained about the poor management of the tabulation and the on-again, off-again counting. “We were here watching the count until 6 a.m. Thursday morning,” Capelle said. “Electoral officials told us to come back at 10 a.m. to resume counting. We were here but Electoral officials didn¹t come and start counting until 4 p.m. We just started counting and Carl (Alik) calls a halt. This isn¹t a party (event), it’s an election. It’s really being influenced by politicians and it’s not the United Democratic Party.”
But opposition AKA poll watchers harshly criticized the counting in Majuro Thursday and Friday of absentee votes cast on outer islands. “By law, the outer island electoral committees are supposed to tabulate all votes cast on their islands,” said Tommy Kijiner, Jr., a poll watcher for opposition party candidates. He pointed to the provision of the election law that states the outer islands are to transmit their tabulation results to the chief electoral officer who is to include the figures in his overall count “without further check.” Ballot boxes are normally only reopened in response to a court-ordered recount, or if the chief electoral officer approves a recount petition.
Most outer islands did count all their votes. But electoral officials told the poll watchers Thursday that some of the outer islands didn’t count the absentee votes cast on these far-flung atolls because there were no poll watchers present from the islands for which the votes were cast. “Their own logic is flawed,” Kijiner said. “When we said all our poll watchers were going to walk out in protest Thursday night, I asked, ‘Will you still count the absentee votes without us here to watch?’ and the electoral officials said ‘Yes.’”
Kijiner said the practice in every previous election is all votes cast on outer islands are counted on those islands immediately after the polls close, and then transmitted by radio through the government¹s telecom agency, which types up the report and submits it to the Electoral Administration in Majuro for incorporation into the tally sheets and public broadcast, and the ballot boxes are locked and shipped into Majuro.
“After the postal ballots were counted Wednesday, we had won four (closely contested Parliament) races,” deBrum said. “Then they come up with more votes to count on Thursday and Friday. Where were these (outer island) boxes secured during the past two weeks since the election?
“We asked for the tally sheets from the outer islands, but they won¹t give them to us,” deBrum said. “They’re hiding the tally sheets (produced immediately following the November 19 election by the tabulating committees on each of the approximately 70 outer islands with populations).”
The results from the outer islands have also not yet been announced on the government’s radio station, a departure from past election practice criticized by AKA, government and independent candidates and poll watchers alike.
A President¹s Office spokesman said Friday that he didn't know when final election results would be issued by the Electoral Administration.
Opposition candidates are also disputing Majuro voting box number two that that has been opened three times since election day. It was first partially counted the day after the election on November 20, and then earlier this week reopened twice to count several hundred so-called “challenged” votes that had been placed in envelopes for various reasons, including people’s names not being on the voter registration lists, voters not having photo identification cards with them at the time of voting, or simply improper instructions from polling station officials who didn¹t understand voting rules.
Both ruling party and opposition party poll watchers confirmed that when this Majuro box number two was first reopened on Wednesday evening and the envelopes counted, there were two more envelopes than when the box had been locked on November 20.
This discovery prompted a heated, two-hour argument among United Democratic Party, Aelon Kein Ad and Electoral officials about whether the votes should be tabulated. The box is from an area of Majuro that is regarded as favoring government party candidates.
Ultimately, the counting of this Majuro box number two and the outer islands absentee votes moved ahead overnight Wednesday and Thursday, finishing at about 3 a.m. Friday. One ruling party poll watcher said Friday that when he asked if the electoral office planned to count “challenged” votes contained in many of the other 30 Majuro voting boxes, chief electoral officer Alik said, “I’ll let you know on Monday.”
The
The law was written when there were few Marshall Islanders living abroad. Today there is an estimated 15,000 Marshall Islanders in the
DeBrum said the opposition party will go to court next week to attempt to invalidate the results of Majuro box number two and the outer island absentee votes improperly counted in Majuro. He said they also will shortly announce the formation of a new government.
Election results do not become final until the end of a 14-day period after the final, unofficial results are publicly released by the Electoral Administration, which gives candidates a period to file recount petitions or court challenges. The Electoral Administration has not said when it will release the final unofficial results.
