Sen. Lorraine Berry will again represent St. Thomas in the 24th Legislature after edging out Sen. George Goodwin on 26 absentee votes.
Goodwin won the seventh and last district seat in the general election on Nov. 7 with 4,998 votes. Berry, however, was close behind with 4,883. But by about midnight Saturday, Berry overtook her colleague by collecting 263 absentee votes to Goodwin’s 122 for a 5,146 to 5,120 victory.
Neither Berry nor Goodwin got enough absentee votes to edge out Sen.-elect Norma Samuel, now in the No. 6 slot. Samuel received 81 absentee votes.
Other St. Thomas-St. John senators receiving votes included former Sen. Judy Gomez with 142; Sen.-elect Carlton Dowe, 107; and Sen. Donald Cole, 126.
On St. Croix, cousins Sen. Vargrave Richards and Raymond "Usie" Richards had tied for the seventh seat in that district with 3,936 each. But after Saturday’s absentee ballot count, Sen. Richards had unofficially broken the deadlock by 25 votes.
After essentially conceding the victory Saturday night to Sen. Richards, Usie Richards announced Sunday morning that he was petitioning the St. Croix Board of Elections for a recount of the absentee ballots. In his recount petition, Usie Richards, who chairs the Joint Boards of Elections, said that ballot-counting procedures adopted by the St. Croix Board of Elections were not followed during the initial absentee ballot count.
He is also requesting a review of all the people who voted by absentee ballots to determine whether they qualify, and a re-tabulation of electronic cartridges used in voting machines.
The Boards of Elections, which include the St. Croix district and the St. Thomas-St. John district, consist of 11 members elected by the voters in each district to terms of four years. No more than four members of the same political party can be members of each board. Within their respective districts, the Boards of Elections have, among other things, jurisdiction over the registration of voters; conduct primary and general elections; investigate election fraud and irregularities; receive from election officers the returns of all elections; and canvass and compute the returns.
The boards must certify the election results no later than one week following the vote. The St. Croix Board of Elections is scheduled to meet Monday, and Usie Richards said he hoped his recount petition would be considered.