With the counting of outstanding ballots complete in both districts, V.I. Joint Board of Elections members convened Thursday to resolve several challenges filed by or against candidates running in the August Democratic primary. Nearly two hours was spent at the beginning of the meeting dealing with a recount petition filed by St. Croix Senate candidate Nemmy Jackson-Williams, whose concerns centered on irregularities experienced by voters using machines either during the early voting process or on primary election day. Specifically, two witnesses called by Jackson-Williams and her campaign manager Dale Brown said the voting machines they used didn’t accept their ballots the first time around, and once the ballots were accepted, the screens on the machines didn’t show the voters who they actually voted for.
In the end, the board denied the recount petition, citing human error and a lack of education surrounding the voting process, particularly the concept of “undervoting,” in which the voter doesn’t select the minimum number of candidates required in a given race. In the case of witness Violet Rogers, poll watchers explained that Rogers only selected three candidates in the St. Croix Senate race instead of seven, in which case she would not have been shown who she voted for, but rather who she didn’t vote for and given the option to select from the remaining candidates.
Full Article: Elections Board Fields Challenges About Machine Irregularities | St. Croix Source.