Voters in the U.S territory of Guam will be the country’s first to cast their choice for president on 05 November, but it will be a symbolic and democratically meaningless exercise.
As the mainland gets to have its say on who will be president, an anomaly in U.S law means Guamanians are among the four million disenfranchised Americans living in U.S territories whose vote doesn’t count.
Politics is a hot topic on the streets of the capital Haganta – which lies 8,000 miles from Washington and 2,500 miles from Beijing – as they will pick a governor, local legislature and a non-voting delegate to the U.S House of Representatives next week.
Right at the bottom of their two-page ballot form, residents can also mark a box for their preferred presidential candidate.
Bearing the slogan “Where America’s Day Begins,” Guam is 14 hours ahead of Washington time and this straw poll is considered a strong indicator of how the rest of the nation will vote.
Guamanians who relocate to the mainland automatically acquire full-fledged American status in a perplexing political anomaly that creates two classes of U.S citizenship.
“Compared to only doing a mock vote back home, I feel it’s a privilege to actually be able to vote,” said Zita T. Winemiller, a retired journalist who moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas in 2017.
“Guam and all the other U.S territories should really be a part of the voting process and included in decisions affecting all U.S citizens,” she told BenarNews.
Since the first presidential straw poll in 1980, when Guam voted for Jimmy Carter over the winner Ronald Reagan, it has reflected the mainland result, except again in 2016 when they voted for Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump.
Seven presidents have visited the territory, but mostly as a pitstop en-route to Asia, including Richard Nixon during his historic trip to China in 1972.
People who live on the mainland and move back to Guam again become disenfranchised.
“I have always felt the emotional injustice,” said Ginger Cruz, the Democrats’ candidate for Guam’s non-voting delegate in Washington.
She returned in 2019 after living in the mainland for many years and is campaigning for Guam to have greater oversight from the White House.
“Presidential elections have a major impact on Guam. Given that two of the three legs of our economy are federally funded and everything we do is subject to federal law, we are highly impacted by presidential policies,” Cruz said.
While territorial delegates can introduce bills and advocate for their territory in the U.S Congress, they have no voice on the floor.
Guam was colonised by the Spanish 1688 and ceded to the U.S in 1898. Efforts since the 1990s to hold a non-binding plebiscite for Guamanians to choose between independence, statehood or free association with the U.S have been struck down by the courts. It is one of 17 non-self-governing territories on the UN’s decolonisation list.
While Guam is exempted from paying the U.S federal income tax, many argue that such a waiver does not make up for what the tiny island brings to the table.
The territory is a lynchpin in the superpower’s strategy in the Indo-Pacific region and the population of 153,000 has one of the nation’s highest military enlistment rates per capita.
Often referred to as the “tip of the U.S military spear”, due to its proximity to China, the Department of Defence owns one-third of Guam lands.
The territory is home to major air force, naval and army bases, five fast-attack submarines, and is awaiting about 5,000 Marines being relocated from Okinawa in Japan.
Another legal contradiction is mainland Americans – including military personnel – who live in foreign countries can cast presidential absentee ballots, but not if they reside in a U.S territory.
Joyce McClure, a former New York State resident, relocated to Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) in 2015 and voted by absentee ballot in the 2016 and 2020 U.S national elections.
“I am proud to say I have never missed an election in 56 years, a period during which I have lived in seven different states, one foreign country and one territory,” McClure told BenarNews.
She relocated to the U.S territory and “as a Guam resident, I voted in the 2022 Guam elections.”
McClure moved back to the states last year and has just cast her mail-in ballot for president from her current home in Virginia.
Guamanians who live abroad are able to cast absentee votes in their local elections.
“My son, grandchildren and sisters, nieces and nephews are still in Guam. I will always be interested in what goes on there,” said Berni Penaflor, now a resident of Washington State voting for president for the third time since moving in 2014.
Other U.S territories also affected by the law in the Pacific include neighboring Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, along with U.S Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean.
Voter participation in Guam’s elections has dropped from above 70 percent in 2014 to 40 percent in the 2022 poll for the delegate to the House of Representatives.
