by Mindy Aguon

Guam - Preparations for Decision 2012 are well underway with dozens of individuals filing their candidacy for office, ongoing voter registration and finding precinct officials who are willing to work during the primary and general elections as well as preparing for the possibility of a voter initiative to be placed on the General Election ballot. With less than three months until the Primary Election, the Guam Election Commission is busier than usual.

Executive director Maria Pangelinan says aside from the usual filing of candidates and voter registration, her staff are busy verifying signatures that were submitted by the proponents of an initiative to legalize for profit bingo exclusively at the former Guam Greyhound facility. The Guam-Japan Friendship Village is hoping island voters will allow their initiative to be included on the General Election ballot.

The group has already submitted 1,000 signatures of those in support of their petition. Guam-Japan Friendship Village needs another 3700 signatures to make it on the ballot and proponents of the bingo initiative are willing to pay five bucks a pop to see that happen. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get more information about the ongoing signature campaign as proponents denied our requests for an interview today and even kicked us off the property.

Advertisements in the newspaper indicate that the organization, made up of Japanese investors, is seeking interested individuals who can collect signatures for the petition and in turn be paid $5 for each registered voter's signature they obtain. Should the group obtain the necessary number of signatures as required, the commission is mandated by law to establish an education campaign.

"There's a section where the people that are going against it can submit their views on it and then we send out pamphlets," Pangelinan told KUAM News.

In addition to verifying signatures for the initiative, the GEC is accepting applications for precinct officials. "We need to hire 290 - we have 58 precincts every precinct needs five officials. And we hope we can come up with two alternates for each precinct so that's what we are doing now. The parties were given the opportunity to submit their representatives as precinct officials so we are accepting that, too," she said.

Pangelinan says the law pays $170 for each election precinct official's work. Having enough cash to fund those workers and pay for the election is also a concern as there currently isn't enough money to fund this year's election. She explained, "After looking at actual expenditures for 2010 elections, it's showing that the cost of an election in 2010 was $225,000," and when asked how much money the GEC has for the upcoming election," she replied, "That's what we are going to find out today."

"I don't think I have enough," she also said.

Pangelinan was meeting with the Bureau of Budget Management & Research this afternoon to discuss the shortfall that she says could be as much as $100,000. Meanwhile, July 3 is the deadline for candidates to file.