As the Guam Election Commission vets all candidates before official board ratification for the primary election, as of Monday all but one gubernatorial team is in the clear for their nominating petitions.

Businessmen Jeff Pleadwell and Charlie Hermosa, who are running for governor and lieutenant governor as independents, were notified by the GEC on Friday night that they may not have enough validated signatures to make it on the primary election ballot.

This comes as the GEC conducts a deep dive of all candidates and their submitted documents, to include nominating petitions, court clearances and financial statements, before the board officially certifies the list of candidates.

Pleadwell said, "We wanted more information and that’s why we came here today, with Hermosa adding, "We pretty much wanted to act on it fairly quickly, that’s why we requested a meeting with the GEC just to ensure we understood what was going on. At this point, they’re still counting and they’re still making sure that all the signatures are valid."

Under Guam law, gubernatorial teams must collect a minimum of 500 signatures from registered voters.

GEC executive director Maria Pangelinan says the other five gubernatorial teams are in the clear for that requirement. She explained, "Our staff and our board will follow the law to the tee as to how to these candidates get onto the ballot."

Pangelinan was unable to say how many signatures were flagged, emphasizing the tedious review process is still ongoing. "The voter registration list that we are using is dated March 25. Our April list is not official yet. So what we have to do is we have to go through all the pending registries in our office," she added. "We will go through those, and that’s tedious, to make sure that we can count every single signature that’s on that nominating petition."

It should be noted Pleadwell and Hermosa filed their packets Friday afternoon, just hours before the deadline.

In the meantime, the independent candidates are confident they will make it on the ballot. Hermosa said, "At this point, no concerns. I think that we’re going through the process. They’re still counting as they said. We’re still waiting for their final verdict."

The GEC's board is set to meet next Thursday, May 14 at 5:30pm for the certification process. A public drawing to determine the order in which candidates names appear on the ballot will take place shortly after.

"They’ll vet that out, they’ll sign off on it. We’re ready to print the primary election ballot," Pangelinan said.