North Stonington ― Days before the Eastern Pequot Tribe elects members of its governing body, the state Office of the Attorney General is reviewing claims of “ongoing problems and inconsistencies” in the process.

Several seats on the Easterns’ tribal council, including that of Chairman Mitchel Ray, are up for election Saturday in balloting among tribal members.

In June, Mark Sebastian, a tribal elder who lives on the tribe’s Lantern Hill reservation, emailed Attorney General William Tong, alleging violations of the tribe’s constitution. Sebastian noted state statutes specify that a tribe must file with the state a description of how it selects its leaders and how its leaders exercise their authority.

“A leadership dispute shall be resolved in accordance with tribal usage and practice,” statutes further state.

Sebastian, in the email, claimed that while the Easterns’ constitution calls for elections to be conducted by a committee of no fewer than five members, the tribe’s current Elections Committee has only two members.

The members, one of whom is Destiny Ray, the tribal chairman’s daughter, “have imposed themselves beyond their scope of authority and have altered Tribal Council seat term limits and have denied qualified election committee volunteers access to participate ...,” Sebastian wrote.

He also claimed tribal members have complained to the committee about being denied the right to vote in previous elections. And, in a phone message Wednesday, he said tribal members raising objections want assurances that “independent observers” will be allowed to monitor the upcoming election.

A spokeswoman said the attorney general’s office was reviewing Sebastian’s email and had not yet responded to it.

Mitchel Ray dismissed Sebastian’s allegations, saying Saturday’s elections will be conducted the same way they have been for decades.

“This is internal,” he said of the controversy. “It’s a shame it’s been brought to the attorney general instead of being dealt with in house. It has no legitimacy.”

Ray, bidding for election to a second three-year term as chairman, said he is being challenged by Lawrence Wilson, a current and former council member who was instrumental in preparing the Easterns’ original petition for federal recognition in the 1970s.

Wilson was not available to comment Wednesday.

According to Ray, six tribal members are vying for three vacant council seats up for election Saturday.

Ray said he has not been campaigning aggressively for reelection. He said he has been meeting with architects designing new tribal offices, a much-delayed project the tribe hopes to launch next spring, and preparing for the tribe’s annual pow-wow, which will take place Sunday on its Wrights Road reservation.

The Easterns number more than 1,200 members, about half of whom are eligible to vote in council elections, Ray said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com