Glitch In Early Vote Count Causes Some Concern

Former Virgin Islands Supervisor of Elections John Abramson Jr. wrote a letter to St. Croix District Board of Elections Chair, Adelbert Bryan, sent out on Monday, voicing his concerns with discrepancies in vote tallies on the Election System’s website, VIvote.gov, that saw some candidates losing votes while the night progressed.

In his letter released to the public, Abramson said he was “requesting a full explanation and accounting” of disparities he realized in the St. Croix District Board of Elections unofficial results.

“Although these discrepancies may seem marginal, it could represent a flaw in the reporting system of the DS200 tabulating units, and moreover, a disenfranchisement of voters and candidates alike. These discrepancies pose a concern as to the integrity of the entire primary election results,” wrote Abramson.

In a brief response to Abramson’s concerns, a spokeswoman for DS200 vote tabulating machines said that there is a simple explanation for the confusion, and that the unofficial tallies posted in the system from Saturday’s vote count are indeed correct.

“The results are absolutely correct at this time, said Kathy Rogers of Systems and Software, a Nebraska-based company.

Why the Concern?

On Saturday night while the primary election results were being tallied, the VI Elections system website posted what looked like three different point-in-time vote counts, one at 9:14 p.m., another at 9:41 p.m., and the last one at 9:47 p.m.

When votes are being counted, the tallies are only supposed to either stay as is for candidates or increase — not decrease. But Saturday certain candidates saw their tallies decreased rather than remaining unchanged or increasing.  Apparently some votes simply vanished into thin air.

Former Senator Emmett Hansen’s vote count sat at 675 by 9:14 p.m., however by 9:47 p.m., it decreased to 664, and said number became his final tally. And State Chairman of the Republican Party, John Canegata, who was running to retain his seat, went from 76 votes to a final tally of 55 votes.

Bryan said he would not comment on the matter because he had not received a copy of the letter.