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Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesNews Brief: Charges Made After Board Confrontation

News Brief: Charges Made After Board Confrontation

Dec 9, 2004 – The challenge Hope Gibson is making over a seat on the St. Croix Board of Elections has steamed up. (See "Board of Elections Results Challenged").
The Daily News reported Thursday that Gibson has filed assault charges against John Abramson, elections supervisor, after an incident during a chaotic Board of Elections meeting Tuesday. According to the article, Abramson denied the charges. Gibson said Abramson elbowed her. He said she intentionally ran into him.
The pair have been at odds for several months. Gibson was vehemently against the use of voting machines that leave no paper trail.(See "Let the Voter Beware, or Be Confident of the Count?").
Gibson's latest complaint against the board concerns the election of Carmen
Golden with 27write-in ballots. Gibson received 15 write-ins for that seat.
Gibson's claim is that Golden cannot hold the seat because she was a registered Democrat at the time of the election. V.I. Law provides that only four Democrats can sit on the Board of Elections at one time. Golden changed her party registration after the election. Gibson also claims that Golden used her position as a sitting member on the board to obtain information to which other candidates had no access.
Abramson has contended that Gibson has not followed the correct procedure in filing her complaint.
According to the Daily News, the board wrote Gibson a letter saying her complaint was pure conjecture and Golden will take her seat.
There are two election districts within the Virgin Islands, the district of St. Croix and the district of St. Thomas- St. John. Each district has a separate Board of Elections consisting of seven members who are elected to terms of four years.

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