Previous Story
Plan B on delegate election
|
Posted on Nov 03 2008
There are nine candidates running for the position of NMI delegate to the U.S. Congress in this year’s upcoming election on Nov. 4. Under the 50-plus-1 initiative that was passed some time ago, the winning candidate must receive 50 percent plus one of the votes cast. Due to the large number of candidates running, it appears highly unlikely that any one of them will receive that majority on Nov. 4.
Perhaps I missed it, but I have not yet seen any plans from the NMI Election Commission to deal with the probability that no one will receive the required number of votes (50 plus 1). On top of that, there is very little time between the election on Nov. 4 and the date in January 2009 when the winner must take his seat in Washington, D.C.
I certainly hope that this election is not going to be a case like last time wherein some “winners” were elected by a minority of voters. If so, we could have a delegate to the U.S. Congress elected by as few as one-eighth or about 12 percent of the voters. Such a delegate would, in effect, be useless to the NMI.
With the election already upon us, I think it’s about time the election commission enlightened the voters about this important issue and any plans to hold a run-off election, if needed. If I missed such an announcement, or it was not printed in the newspaper’s online versions, then I ask that it be made available in the newspapers for those who read only the online versions.
[B]Dr. Thomas D. Arkle Jr.[/B] [I]San Jose, Tinian[/I]
