Breaking

Late into Wednesday night at the Elections System office on St. Croix, Board of Elections members continued their task of counting Tuesday’s General Election ballots in a room overcrowded with concerned citizens, the media and Sen. Alicia “Chucky” Hansen, who video recorded and snapped pictures of ballots Board members were scanning through the DS200 machine.

Votes still remain to be tallied at three precincts in the St. Croix District, according to Board of Elections member Rupert Ross, Jr., who also revealed the total amounts to 2,000 ballots.

Board members said various problems have stalled the release of updated election 2014 results, including a power outage at Elena L. Christian Junior High School precinct that rendered the DS200 machines inoperable. The Water and Power Authority moved swiftly to return power to the polling site; however, the decision was made to send those ballots to the Board of Elections to be counted there instead.

The three remaining polling places on St. Croix to be counted are Alexander Henderson Elementary School, Lew Muckle Elementary School and the John F. Kennedy Community Center.

Counting of ballots will continue on Thursday at 9 a.m., Board members say, and updated results will be provided on the vivote.gov website soon. Since it took the Board eight hours (1 – 9 p.m.) to scan 893 ballots from the Elena L. Christian precinct, it is not certain that counting the remaining ballots will be completed on Thursday.

Hansen remained in the room the entire time where Board members were counting the ballots, video recording and snapping photos of the process. Some in attendance questioned the legality of a candidate running for office recording and viewing ballots being counted, but according to Board of Elections St. Croix District Chairman Adelbert Bryan, when St. Croix Chief of Police James Parris was called to the scene, he saw nothing wrong with what Hansen was doing and left.

Total ballots at Elena L. Christian amounted to 893. Of that number, 147 ballots were write-ins and only five were sticker ballots.

Tags: votes

Ernice Gilbert
I wear many hats, I suppose, but the one which fits me best would be journalism, second to that would be radio personality, thirdly singer/songwriter and down the line. I've been the Editor-In-Chief at my videogames website, Gamesthirst, for over 5 years, writing over 7,000 articles and more than 2 million words. I'm also very passionate about where I live, the United States Virgin Islands, and I'm intent on making it a better place by being resourceful and keeping our leaders honest. VI Consortium was birthed out of said desire, hopefully my efforts bear fruit. Reach me at [email protected].