Committee considers adopting updated Guam election manual; GEC seeks technical corrections

The Guam Legislature’s committee on Sept. 26, 2025 heard Bill 190-38 COR, a measure to adopt the Guam Election Commission’s updated election manual as chapter 5 of title 6, Guam Administrative Rules and Regulations.

Maria Pangolinan, executive director of the Guam Election Commission, told the committee the manual updates procedures for early and absentee voting, standardizes forms and inventories, clarifies chain-of-custody and media protocols, and incorporates accessibility best practices. The GEC said the manual is roughly 70 pages and that the commission approved the updates at a public meeting on April 14, 2025 before transmitting them to the Office of the Attorney General and the governor for review on June 27, 2025.

Pangolinan requested technical corrections to ensure consistency with the Guam Code Annotated and other enacted laws. Specific changes requested at the hearing included changing a registration-related deadline from 10 days to 15 days prior to an election to match statutory language, lengthening a district-registrar grace period from three to five days, and updating the cessation date for district registration to 15 days before an election. The GEC also flagged a change to candidate filing windows: for certain offices (attorney general, public auditor, Guam Education Board, Consolidated Commission on Utilities) the suggested timing in the manual was adjusted to require filing 160 days before the general election with a latest filing no later than 90 days prior.

The GEC told the committee it anticipates using electronic pollbooks for the February 2026 cycle to replace paper signature rosters and said it will conduct an island-wide voter education campaign to familiarize voters with the technology. Pangolinan said that, as best practices evolve in the election industry, a lag in the AAA rulemaking process can delay the manual’s incorporation of new practices; she urged the legislature to consider sequencing implementation responsibly and allowing committee amendments where appropriate.

Committee members asked for examples of problems the new manual remedies; Pangolinan cited improvements such as updated ballot-printing procedures to reflect in-house digital printing (rather than older offset methods) and clarified reconciliation and provisional-ballot processes. The Bureau of Budget and Management Research and the Office of the Attorney General reviewed the submission; the GEC reported the estimated economic impact of the changes does not exceed the $500,000 AAA threshold. The committee considered the bill "duly heard" and will accept written testimony for five business days; no vote was recorded at the hearing.

If adopted after markup and any corrections, the manual would guide training, early-voting procedures and administrative complaints processes ahead of the 2026 election cycle.