Two days after the deadline set by law, St. Thomas-St. John Board of Elections members met Tuesday to certify the district’s primary election numbers.
The top of the tickets for statewide office remain unchanged, with Delegate Donna Christensen and Basil Ottley on the Democratic Party gubernatorial ticket and Stacey Plaskett as the party’s candidate for delegate to Congress. The Republican Party is not contesting the gubernatorial race this year.
Political party offices were decided at the primary and will not be on the November general election ballot. Riise Richards won a seat on the Democratic Party Territorial Committee for the St. Thomas-St. John District.
Herb Schoenbohm won on St. Thomas for Republican Party state chair, 13-12, but John Canegata remains the winner overall, due to Canegata’s 54 – 42 lead on St. Croix.
The official results show a change in the St. Thomas-St. John Senate lineup. Incumbents Clifford Graham and Myron Jackson are still in the top two spots, but following them are Sen. Janette Millin Young with 2,312 votes, Jean Forde with 2,303 votes, Justin Harrigan Sr. with 2,250 votes, Donald “Ducks” Cole with 2,239 votes, and newcomer Marvin Blyden with 1,946 votes.
The board initially met on Monday and had no quorum, but working off an opinion from their attorney Kim Salisbury, members voted to allow Alecia Wells to vote and certify over the phone. Present during Tuesday’s meeting were board members Harry Daniel, Claudette Georges and Larry Boschulte. Board member Wilma Marsh-Monsanto is on-island but sent a letter to Elections on Monday saying that she was “disassociating” herself from the process for her “own legal protection.”
In the letter, Marsh-Monsanto said that, according to the V.I. Code, each district has 15 days after an election to certify the results.
“Yet the 15-day time period has expired without the calling and convening of an official board meeting for the purpose of complying with the legal mandate,” Marsh-Monsanto wrote. “Not only was I not notified as to the status of any pending meeting, I am not aware of any board member who had supplied reasonable advance communication whatsoever justifying their excuse from this part of the process.”
Four of the district board members are currently out of the territory, and Marsh-Monsanto added in her letter that Boschulte had also “recused himself in writing” from all board activity up to that point.
But Boschulte was present during the initial Monday meeting and again on Tuesday. Wells had also called in during the Monday meeting, but it was said during that time that she would not be able to vote and certify over the phone.
Salisbury, however, explained after the board met again on Tuesday and, this second time around, allowed Wells to vote by phone, since it was an emergency and the 15-day deadline to certify had already passed.
“All of this is going to be ratified in an official meeting on Monday,” Salisbury said, adding that the “full board” would be there to ratify results.
Salisbury and Daniel said the short public notice about the meeting also falls under emergency circustances, since the board was working off of a directive from the Attorney General to meet.
