Sen. Lorraine Berry has won the Senate's seventh seat in the St. Thomas district. Territorial Court Judge Ishmael Meyers issued a ruling late Wednesday in Sen. George Goodwin's suit against the Board of Elections contesting the absentee ballot votes.
James Francis, Berry's chief of staff, said at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday that Berry was busy reading the 18-page ruling and would comment later.
Meyers heard more than 15 hours of testimony last Wednesday and Thursday in Territorial Court. Goodwin contended that 480 of the absentee ballots should be thrown out because they were not postmarked. He had won the seventh seat in the election, but Berry surpassed him by 26 absentee ballot votes to take the seat.
The envelopes are prepaid postage which the U.S. Postal Service considers business return mail and does not stamp. Federal laws accept the postage-paid envelopes, but the V.I. Code states the envelopes must be postmarked and in the Elections office on or before election day.
Defense attorneys contended that the V.I. law is ambiguous in intent. Its intent is to get the ballots in by Election Day, they said.
There were also issues relating to ballot challenges and unsealed envelopes. Attorney General Iver Stridiron ruled on Nov. 18, the ballot counting day, that the unpostmarked envelopes should be counted and that the unsealed inner envelopes would be valid if the affidavits were properly signed.
(Ed. note: An earlier Source article on the Goodwin lawsuit incorrectly stated that the Board of Elections' policy in past elections to accept the postage-paid envelopes had not been raised in last week's hearings by either side. In fact, that policy was established in the testimony of Elections Supervisor John Abramson.)