Guam - The Guam Election Commission was able to complete a successful special election, despite having to manually tabulate the ballots this weekend. And lawmakers today convened session to welcome their new colleague.

Tony Ada is officially the newest addition to the 30th Guam Legislature. A swearing-in ceremony was held late this afternoon, after he who won this past weekend's special election decidedly.  Obtaining 43% of the votes, the Republican senator elect now fills the seat left vacant this past January by former Democrat senator Matt Rector. This now places nine Democrats and six members of the GOP in the Legislature.  

But Speaker Judi Won Pat doesn't feel this will have an affect when it comes time to decision making on the session floor.  She said, "Actually, it wouldn't. I mean yes, we'll get our fifteenth member in, but it wouldn't affect the process at all. If you notice really and look at the voting files, many times we'll get unanimous support. Very rarely do you get just a party line vote."

As for the legislative committees once led by Rector, Won Pat says she has it under control.  "Currently I know Senator Palacios, because he's the vice-chair has been the acting chair, but what we did say is that if this was going to be the case that a Democrat has not come in to take over the committee, then we will take the different departments and agencies in which he has oversight and split that among the senators."

Also today, the Guam Election Commission made certified the results from Saturday's election. Executive Director John Blas says he is now working out the issue surrounding the electronic tabulators in hopes to have it resolved before the upcoming Decision 2010 Primary Election.

He said, "With the time that I was dealt to conduct the special election, I could not focus my entire effort in resolving those issues. It resulted of course in conducting manual tabulation but of course it's not something that can't be resolved. We will begin looking into billings to ensure they're up for the Primary."

The GEC's board is expected to further discuss the issue along with the low voter turnout for this special election during their next meeting on April 21.