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21,680 ballots ordered from Nebraska
CEC’s Sablan: We’re set
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Posted on Sep 08 2022
Kayla S. Igitol and Robin N. Sablan
Commonwealth Election Commission executive director Kayla S. Igitol disclosed yesterday that she ordered 21,680 ballots from Nebraska-based Election Systems & Software for the Nov. 8 general elections.
“We’re set,” said CEC administrative officer Robin N. Sablan in a separate interview at CEC office in Susupe yesterday morning.
Saipan Tribune opted not to ask more questions, through text messages, to Igitol as she was not feeling well and not in her office yesterday.
Sablan said since they have over 18,000 voters, they just ordered 15% higher number of ballots from ES&S “just in case.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, there were 18,903 registered voters in the CNMI for the Nov. 8 general elections.
Sablan said they already sent, through an email, to ES&S the ballots’ layout that the board had already approved.
So now we’re just waiting on the ballot on how they look and everything,” he said.
Sablan said the layout was sent to ES&S, which will then forward the final layout for Igitol’s approval.
“As soon as they print that, they’ll send us by batches because we open up early voting early and we want to make sure there’s enough ballots for absentee requesters. We want to send them out as soon as we get the ballots,” he said.
Sablan said ES&S is going to send to Saipan a technician to check the counting machines before election and also a technician for election day on standby.
“They’re already been notified. They’re actually calling us, asking us the dates of our election day and early voting. So we gave that information already,” he said.
Sablan said tomorrow, Friday, is the last day of registration to vote and they’re open at 7:30am and even lunch time, but will be closing at 4:30pm that day.
He said during previous Saturdays they were open, but because this Friday is the deadline to register, they’re no longer open on Saturdays.
Sablan urged those who have not registered yet to come down as soon as possible before the Friday deadline.
“Re-register if you want your name to be changed or your address, your precinct,” he added.
