Even before the St. Croix Board of Elections considered the validity of 56 challenged absentee ballots Wednesday, the challenger, Senate candidate Raymond "Usie" Richards, left the proceeding with his protest still in effect and the prospect of court in the offing.
By the end of the process some three hours later, Sen. Vargrave Richards, who tied with Usie Richards with 3,936 votes apiece in the Nov. 7 general election, had possession of St. Croix’s last Senate seat by 25 votes.
Usie Richards contends that the guidelines used by the board to determine whether a challenged ballot should be counted is not in line with V.I. election law. The board, however, chose to go by advice from the V.I. Attorney General’s Office in determining what is or isn’t a spoiled ballot.
After Usie Richards left the meeting, the board began its perusal one by one of the 56 challenged ballots, and in a final – yet still challenged – count had Sen. Richards ahead with 4,083 votes to Usie Richards’ 4,058.
Of the 56 "spoiled" ballots, where a voter picked both a party symbol, party candidate and a non-party candidate, 43 were disqualified and 13 deemed valid by the board.
And despite a request by Usie Richards to the board that it refrain from certifying the results of the election until Sen. George Goodwin's lawsuit in Territorial Court on St. Thomas is decided, Board Chairman Dodson James said the process will begin.
Meanwhile, Usie Richards said that while the board has the authority to make decisions on challenged ballots, he said its decision to follow the advice of the attorney general instead of certain statutes he believes determine voter intent leave him only one option.
"The only recourse for me is to have a court of law make a determination if act 4934 is applicable," he said, in regard to guidelines for the validity of paper ballots.
