V.I. Democrats To Hold Emergency Meeting on Monday, Postpone Party Office Elections Until Nov 5th

“The election laws of the Virgin Islands under Title 18 of the Virgin Islands Code has to be amended,” reads a statement from the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands. To allow more time for this to be done, the Democratic party office elections will be postponed until early November. The comment came from state party chair Stedmann Hodge Jr. during an emergency meeting on Saturday to make a final decision regarding the decision of the Election System of the Virgin Islands to exclude party offices from the primary election ballot. The position taken by the party remains much the same as that articulated in May – that a January ruling by the District Court merely strips ESVI of the authority to certify and/or reject the party primary process; it does not remove the responsibility of conducting the primaries from the system.‌ However, because the definition of political parties was removed from one section of Title 18, leaving only “political bodies” – which are prohibited from bein...