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Ballot Count Winds Down on St. Thomas-St. John

With approximately 1,100 ballots – including absentee votes – remaining to be tabulated, the general election count is finally winding down on St. Thomas-St. John.

The St. Thomas-St. John Elections Board counted until 7 p.m. Monday, going through a little more than 400 ballots, and will continue Tuesday morning. Arturo Watlington Jr., district board chairman, said the total left to count includes approximately 600 ballots outstanding from polling sites opened during the general election, including party symbol ballots, that still have to be tallied.

Watlington said the process has gone slowly because the board has had to remake several ballots, get them stamped, then feed through the machine for tabulation. Hand-counting instead of remaking ballots that are spoiled in some areas has been easier, less time consuming and has safeguarded against ballots – such as those where sections are left blank – coming up as a “no vote” when fed into the machine, he explained.

According to the unofficial St. Thomas-St. John results, gubernatorial candidate Donna Christensen still has a slight edge with 4,884 votes over oppoent Kenneth Mapp, who has 4,257 votes. But territorywide, the Mapp/Potter team has 48.14 percent of the vote to Christensen/Ottley’s 37.27 percent. Christensen gained and Mapp lost .6 percent since the Thursday report, according to the Elections website.

In the St. Thomas-St. John Senate race, there is still a battle for the seventh slot, which has gone back and forth between Sen. Donald Cole and newcomer Justin Harrigan. According to Monday’s unofficial numbers, Harrigan was on top with 4,426 votes, while Cole had 4,396.

Sen. Janette Millin Young is in sixth place with 4,603 votes, preceded by Jean Forde in fifth with 4,907 votes, Sen. Tregenza Roach with 5,066 votes, Sen. Clifford Graham with 5,365 votes, and Sen. Myron Jackson with 5,397 votes. Marvin Blyden remains the highest vote-getter on St. Thomas-St. John with 5,520 votes.

As the ballot count winds down, however, there are still other issues the board is dealing with. Filed this week in the Elections System and Attorney General’s Offices is a complaint from the Mapp/Potter camp challenging the security of ballots counted on Thursday.

The complaint alleges that, after the count was completed at 9:15 p.m. that night, board members remained in the office and appeared to be entering data into a laptop computer even though the ballots were “supposed to have been secured.” The complaint claims ballots were spread across the conference table in the Elections System’s St. Thomas headquarters, while Watlington and three other board members looked to still “be separating them by precinct.” At that time, everyone else was out of the building, according to the complaint.

Board members said Monday that they were aware of the filing, which asks the attorney general and Joint Elections Board Chairwoman Alecia Wells to investigate.

The district board is also preparing for a press conference Wednesday to answer public questions about the voting and counting process, along with general election and potential run-off concerns.

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