Legislature advances bill to adopt updated Guam Election Commission manual, sets operational changes including electronic poll books
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Summary
Bill 190-38 COR, which would adopt the Guam Election Commission's updated election manual and standardize procedures (including voter registration deadlines and chain-of-custody requirements), was placed on the third-reading file after floor questions about timeline consistency between the manual and other bills.
The Guam Legislature moved Bill 190-38 COR forward on the floor; the measure would adopt the Guam Election Commission’s updated election manual under the Administrative Adjudication Act and standardize forms, chain-of-custody rules, accessibility protocols and an administrative complaints process.
The sponsor described the manual as an administrative and procedural modernization that reconciles practices with statutory changes since 2015. Among the changes noted were: adjusting the voter registration deadline to 15 days for some deadlines, extending district-registration grace periods, clarifying online registration processes for Guam IDs and driver’s license holders, extending candidate filing periods for certain offices, and aligning provisional-ballot counting with statutory 15-day requirements. The sponsor also said the commission has committed to implementing electronic poll books by 2026 and an island-wide voter education campaign.
Several senators asked about apparent inconsistencies between the statutory bills (for example, different start/stop points for district registrars or volunteer registrars vs. in-office registration) and the manual’s language. The sponsor and other members explained that volunteer registrars, district registrars and in-office registration have different timelines and that the manual was reviewed through the administrative-adjudication process; they asked clerks to correct pagination and confirm consistent language.
The author moved the bill to the third-reading file; the presiding officer recorded no objections. Senators asked for clarity and consistency between statutory text and manual language before enactment.
Next steps: Bill 190-38 COR was placed on the third-reading/voting file; further technical consistency checks between statutory text and the manual were requested during floor debate.