With the U.S. Congress currently looking at the draft V.I. constitution, next stop is a referendum in the territory; and placing it on this fall’s regular election ballot would be ideal, St. Croix Board of Elections officials said Monday.
"Considering the referendum separately will be almost the same effort and expense as a second general election," chair Raymond Williams said at the board’s regular meeting Monday morning. Turnout is likely to be much higher if it is included on the same ballot, too, he said.
Hiring a new deputy supervisor of elections for St. Thomas was a topic of particular urgency to the St. Croix board at Monday’s meeting. There has been no deputy supervisor on St. Thomas since late December, when the prior one resigned, Williams said. Natalie Thomas was the prior deputy supervisor.
Other issues on the table will include the logistics of using e-pollbooks for the first time this fall. With the new e-pollbooks, instead of checking their name in the familiar massive-bound poll books, voters will sign their names onto a tablet, and poll workers will check them off from a list displayed on a computer screen.
Just as always, once checked-off the poll book, voters will then go to one of several voting machines and vote anonymously. The signature will be stored along with the voter’s records, making it easier to tabulate and check who has and has not voted yet. Keeping and disseminating accurate statistics will be much easier. But this is the first time they will be used in the territory, so training and logistics have to be worked out.
The board voted to meet again Wednesday with Supervisor of Elections John Abramson to discuss election logistics and the hiring of a new deputy supervisor. Voting yea were:
Williams, Ana Davila, Rupert Ross, Dodson James and Jacqueline Heyliger. Carmen Golden and Lisa Moorhead were absent.
The St. Croix board is meeting at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the elections offices at Sunny Isles. On Thursday, the territorial board—comprised of members of the St. Croix and St. Thomas/St. John boards—is scheduled to meet on St. Thomas at 10:30 a.m.
