Senators weigh proposal to eliminate primary elections
By Joe Taitano II Pacific Daily News
The latest proposal to cancel primary elections on Guam wouldn’t necessarily reduce costs for the Guam Election Commission or cut the number of races that voters have to participate in, according to GEC Executive Director Maria Pangelinan.
A public hearing was hosted Wednesday on Sen. Roy Quinata’s Bill 95-37, which would eliminate the primary election on Guam in its entirety.
Quinata said the measure is aimed at cutting costs for the government, and hopefully drive voter turnout by giving residents just one election to cast a ballot in.
Less people came out to vote in the 2022 primary election than in almost every single gubernatorial election since 1974, the PDN reported last year. Only 2014 was lower during that time period.
Getting rid of primary elections on Guam has been proposed several times over the years, with the most recent proposal coming from Sen. Joe San Agustin back in the 34th Legislature.
But GEC’s Pangelinan said the bill wouldn’t necessarily reduce costs for GEC, or the number of elections voters have to participate in. The issue is with how many votes a gubernatorial team or candidate for Congress needs to get in order to win: a majority of 50%-plus-one of the votes cast in the race.
Any time there are more than two gubernatorial teams, or more than two candidates for the delegate seat, the chances of an even costlier run-off election to decide the winner would be high, Pangelinan said. She said she’s only providing information on the measure, not taking a position on the bill.
Quinata’s bill would also remove the whole section of the law dealing with how GEC determines who qualifies to get on the general election ballot. Only the rules outlined in the Organic Act would be left: be at least 25-years-old and a resident of Guam.
“So conceivably, the entire village of Dededo, that is a citizen and over 25 could get on the ballot to run for senator or (Public Utilities Commission) or anything, correct?” Sen. Tom Fisher asked.
“Yes, senator,” Pangelinan said.
Resident Sedfrey Linsangan, who has run for the Legislature several times in the past, said he opposed the measure because the Constitution guaranteed citizens the right to vote in any primary or other election.
But he also opposed cancelling primaries because he believed it gave new candidates a better chance of getting their name out and getting elected, and gave those that made it onto the general election ballot a chance to “campaign hard.”
Sitting senators would easily benefit from only having one election, he said.
Linsangan was the only other person who showed up to testify, but senators took the opportunity to discuss possible changes to Guam’s electoral process.
It may be feasible to cancel primaries in the mayoral and legislative races, Pangelinan said, responding to questions from Speaker Therese Terlaje. Those two races don’t require a majority of votes in order to win, Pangelinan said, and mayoral races are generally harder to organize due to the large number of candidates running for 19 different seats.
Eliminating a primary may also relieve some of the uncertainty around parties possibly closing their primaries to non-party members. Though local courts allowed parties to hold a closed primary, there’s no word about how the primary is conducted, Pangelinan said, responding to San Agustin.
The Democratic Party of Guam moved last year to close its primaries ahead of the 2022 race, but backpedaled due to a time crunch. The party has renewed its intentions to close the primary in letters written to GEC, but it’s unclear so far how a closed primary—which is funded by the government—would be handled.
Sen. Joanne Brown, meanwhile, said that rather than prolonging the election process with runoffs, she would rather see a reduction in the amount of time residents spend on voting. She said she was not in favor of the permanent, 30-day in-office voting option that became permanent during the last legislative term, which she said opened up the door to election tampering.
“The one thing I like about elections is when they’re over, regardless of who wins or loses,” she said. “Everybody kind of breathes a sigh of relief.”