There will be a run off in the Northern Marianas governor's election, with none of the four candidates achieving the necessary 50 percent plus one vote.
Transcript
There will be a run off in the Northern Marianas governor's election, with none of the four candidates achieving the necessary 50 percent plus one vote.
In unofficial results the CNMI Republican Party's Eloy Inos, the incumbent, and his running mate, Senate President Ralph Torres, garnered a total of 6,342 votes - or 46 point 6 percent of the vote.
Our correspondent in the Northern Marianas Mark Rabago says the pair will go into a run off vote with the independent duo of Heinz Hofschneider and Ray Yumul.
MARK RABAGO: Those two will definitely be scurrying it off for the gubernatorial elections which is mandated by the constitution to happen two weeks after the general elections.
SALLY ROUND: Is it a surprise that it's going to a runoff given the performance of Eloy Inos so far?
MR: It's not a surprise. Actually everybody was already expecting it because it's a four team race for the governorship. It's quite surprising that Inos and Torres came within four percentage points of winning the election outright so it's a good showing for the incumbents and now it's up to them to court the two losing governor candidates so they could sway the votes to them and win the election.
SR: What about the CNMI seat in the Congress?
MR" It's looking like a victory for now four term congressman US delegate Gregorio Sablan so he's running away with it so against his challenger, on our latest figures, he is winning by more than 31% more votes than his opponent. So he's a runaway winner, we could consider it a landslide. He's independent but his caucus is with the Democrats in Congress.
SR: Also people are going to the polls there over three proposed changes to the constitution. What are the changes they're being asked to vote on?
MR: There's two questions on land alienation, Article 12 and Article 11, and there's also a question whether the government should set aside 25% of its budget to education outright before they even split the pie on the budget.
SR: There was a record number of people registered for these polls. What's the voter turnout looking like?
MR: 19 thousand (registered) right now. With the votes for the governor, a little less than 14 thousand, that pretty much gives you an idea of the good turnout. In the CNMI traditionally, the electorate comes in droves to the poll places. I'm not sure if it's better than in previous years but it's looking good because the record number of registered already assures this is going to be a good turnout.
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