by Ken Quintanilla

Guam - With just days remaining until Super Tuesday when thousands of island residents will head to the polls, the Guam Election Commission met Wednesday evening to discuss what is needed to ensure the November 6 General Election goes smoothly.

Executive director Maria Pangelinan reports there are about 50,700 voters who are registered for the general election - over a thousand more than the primary election. Pangelinan added staff were still verifying the total number in which she was advised by the commission to have a final list of registered voters delivered to the respective parties by 5pm Thursday.

Meanwhile, the GEC released the Preliminary Election Campaign Contributions and Expenditures Report and of the 73 candidates required to file, 6 have yet to do so to include congressional write-in candidate Jonathan Diaz, Democrat senatorial candidate Benedicto Toves, Republican senatorial candidate Javier Atalig, Democrat Umatac mayor candidate Daniel Sanchez, Republican Asan/Maina write-in candidate Benny San Nicolas, and Republican Agat vice mayor candidate Agustin Quintanilla. The deadline to file was Friday, October 26 with the final report due 20 days after the general election.

In the legislative race, it shows incumbent senator Dennis Rodriguez, Jr. with the most contributions with more than $105,000 and Michael Limtiaco with the most contributions at more than $94,000. The report also shows the Democratic Party of Guam with contributions at more than $67,000 compared to the Republican Party of Guam at more than $50,000. The Guam Japan Friendship Village meanwhile showed contributions at more than $265,000.

Going over the GEC's timeline, board chairman Joe Mesa expressed disappointment over how the GEC's inventory and documentation of the ballot production was not all together. He requested to see an accurate list and a complete inventory from both the primary election and for the upcoming general election in order to prevent discrepencies from occuring as experienced from the 2010 election.

The GEC meanwhile is still on the search for less than a handful of precinct officials with two openings in Mangilao, one in Ordot-Chalan Pago and one in Yigo. The final official precinct training will take place Thursday evening.

And in preparation for monday's test election, representatives from Election Systems & Software will be on island this weekend to conduct one final inspection of the GEC's four tabulating machines.

The GEC will reconvene on Saturday, November 3 at 9:02am.