On the evening of January 1, the Guam Supreme Court upheld the certification of the November 2, 2010 election results, even though it seems likely that most, if not all, members of the Guam Election Commission are technically not properly members of the Commission. The case is Gutierrez v Guam Election Commission, WRM 10-003.

The 2010 election returns show that Republican gubernatorial nominee Edward Calvo received 19,875 votes, whereas Democratic nominee Carl T. C. Gutierrez received 19,292. No one disputes the validity of the count. However, Gutierrez sued for a new election, on the grounds that the results are illegitimate because most, if not all, members of the Commission were not properly serving. It is uncontested that two of the members of the Commission’s terms had expired before the certification, and contested as to whether a third member’s term had expired. Separate from that issue, three other members of the Commission may not have been appointed according to procedure. The Guam law says that each qualified party may appoint three members of the 7-member Commission, but the Republican members may have been appointed with an improper procedure. The Supreme Court ruled that even if all the members of the Commission have flaws in their appointment, the certification of the election returns appears to be honestly and competently done, and therefore the election will stand. Here is the decision. Thanks to How Appealing for the link.

This is not the first time that Carl Gutierrez has involved high-level courts in a dispute over who won the gubernatorial election in Guam. In 1998, Gutierrez had the most votes, in a very close election, but his Republican opponent sued in federal court to get a run-off. Even though only two candidates had appeared on the ballot, the lower courts ruled that there must be a run-off because no one had a majority if one counts the people who put a ballot in the box, but left the ballot blank for Governor. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the 9th circuit and said blank votes for an office should not be counted, when determining if anyone got a majority of the vote, so Gutierrez had won that case and had served as Governor 1995-2003. In 2010 he had been trying for a third term.