Just as the cliff-hanger national election still has to play itself out, so does the local senatorial vote that could decide at least two seats in the Legislature. But the local question may not be answered until the end of the weekend.
Approximately 1,157 absentee ballots were either mailed or picked up in the territory before the Nov. 7 election, said Supervisor of Elections John Abramson. As of Thursday afternoon, the day before the return deadline, some 700 had been mailed back. That number is running par to the 80 percent that are historically returned, he said.
But Abramson cautioned people in the community who are holding their breaths do keep breathing. Because each ballot is counted individually by hand it may take the whole weekend before a final tally is issued.
"That’s an all-day process," Abramson said. "I anticipate that it may carry on past Saturday or Sunday as well."
That means Sen. Vargrave Richards and Raymond "Usie" Richards on St. Croix and Sens. George Goodwin and Lorraine Berry on St. Thomas will have to wait a few more days before they know what their jobs will be come January.
On St. Croix, 478 absentee ballots were issued and 679 in the St Thomas-St John district.
On St. Thomas, Goodwin won the seventh and last district seat with an unofficial 4,998 votes. Berry was close behind with 4,883. Berry could easily pick up enough absentee votes to surpass Goodwin.
Less likely but also possible is that Berry and Goodwin could garner enough absentee votes to edge out Norma Samuel, now in the No. 6 slot.
On St. Croix, the Richards cousins are tied unofficially at 3,936. Most observers are looking at the absentee count simply as a tie-breaker because sixth-place senator, Adelbert Bryan, has a 387-vote cushion.
But ninth-place finisher Luther Renee is within striking distance of both Richards by just 19 votes. If he does considerably better than both of them in the absentee counting, he could slip into the 24th Legislature.
