Both districts’ boards of elections found no surprises or changes due to absentee ballots and certified the results of the Nov. 2 general election Wednesday, but gubernatorial challenger Ken Mapp is still protesting and might challenge the results.
“It was uneventful and flawless,” said Lorna Thomas, chairwoman of the St. Thomas/St. John Board of Elections, on Wednesday afternoon. Raymond Williams, chairman of the St. Croix board, had a similar assessment for the election and vote-counting process on St. Croix.
“Our work here is done, barring any challenges from any candidates,” said Williams. Both Thomas and Williams said the final, certified tallies will not be released until Thursday because both district reports now must be compiled and formally presented by Supervisor of Elections John Abramson, who is out of the territory until then.
On election night, incumbent Gov. John deJongh Jr. held a substantial margin of victory—56.3 to 43.6 percent—and the absentee ballots have not changed that. Mapp issued a statement on election night refusing to concede, demanding all election records be secured and alleging “peculiarities.”
Mapp issued a statement Wednesday, again demanding Abramson secure all election materials, challenging the election outcome and claiming “fraud,” “intentional misconduct,” and “voting machine irregularities.” As previously, he pointed to the fact that cartridges failed in at least one machine at Joseph Gomez Elementary School on St. Thomas, causing the board to have the machine print out a paper backup.
Asked about the failed cartridges at Gomez, Thomas said the glitch showed that the voting machines’ fail-safe mechanisms worked perfectly.
“We simply pulled the numbers off the machine’s paper record,” Thomas said. “The machines are designed to have redundant systems to record the vote, so the backup worked exactly as it was supposed to work.”
Precinct data from the V.I. Elections Office for Gomez shows deJongh with 772 votes to Mapp’s 689. If every single person who voted at Gomez actually voted for Mapp, deJongh would still win by more than 2,000 votes.
In his statement, Mapp also alleged that some machines had broken seals and that some had an “undocumented chain of custody during the election.” He also repeats his earlier complaint that precinct-level data was not given to his campaign on election night but the following day. Mapp did not say what rule or law this violated, nor offer any argument or explanation for how this fact suggests the vote count is inaccurate.
While Mapp appears to be challenging the election, it is unclear his statement meets the legal criteria for a challenge, or that it is directed to the correct institution. Mapp has directed his statement to Abramson.
“While the law is not specific on how a challenge for voting machine irregularities is to be pursued, it appears that a challenge must be addressed to you,” Mapp wrote to Abramson. “When a challenge could be based on voting fraud and intentional misconduct, it is not clear when the challenge is to be made and by what method,” Mapp continued later.
V.I. law says “a petition for a recount may be filed by any candidate … who believes that there has been fraud or error committed in the canvassing or return of the votes … with the board of elections of the legislative district in which the recount is requested.” (emphasis added)
That same law says the petition must include a statement alleging “the records or copies of records made by the election officers at one or more polling places in such district are erroneous, specifying wherein he deems such records or copies thereof to be in error; or that votes were cast by persons not entitled to vote therein, and that he believes that a recount of the ballots cast in the district will affect the nomination or election of one or more candidates ….” (emphasis added)
Based upon the V.I. election challenge law cited above, the Source has sent the Mapp campaign a series of requests for any specific, actual evidence that a specific, identified part of the vote count is, in fact, inaccurate and for an arithmetic scenario in which the specific vote-count error could potentially change the election outcome. The first information request was Nov. 4 and the most recent Nov. 17.
To date, Mapp has not provided that evidence.
That same law gives Mapp seven days from Wednesday’s certification to file his challenges with the two district elections boards and to provide evidence of what votes are in error and how that error could change the outcome. If Mapp chooses to submit an actual legal challenge to the election outcome within that time, the independently elected members of the two boards would look at the evidence Mapp presents and vote on whether or not to hold a recount.
