Virgin Islands voters casting primary ballots today
Election will decide parties' nominees for delegate, Legislature and boards as well as parties' leaders
By AESHA DUVAL  Virgin Island Daily News
Saturday, September 11th 2004

Voters who cast ballots in the Virgin Islands Primary Election today will local political parties' nominees for the General Election on Nov. 2 and will choose the leaders of the parties.

In the races for public office, voters will narrow the fields of candidates for the territory's delegate to Congress, the V.I. Legislature's St. Croix and at-large seats, the V.I. Board of Education and the V.I. Board of Elections.

The primary election comes at the end of a week dominated by political scandal and criticism of the way the Board of Elections has handled the programming and maintenance of its electronic voting machines.

Elections officials rejected arguments that the machines' integrity is at risk. Several fail-safes are built into the machines to ensure accuracy and security, Supervisor of Elections John Abramson Jr. said.

"If someone opens the machine without going through the proper process, it will blow all fuses in the machine," Abramson said.

If a machine malfunctions, it begins flashing error messages. A team of technicians will be on hand today to take care of problems, Abramson said.

For today's primary election, the Board of Elections has tested and certified 30 machines in the St. Thomas-St. John District and 29 on St. Croix, Abramson said.

Casting your vote

Electronic voting machines should be nothing new for registered Virgin Islands voters. Instructions are written in both English and Spanish and are fairly simple to understand, and election officials will provide assistance if needed.

After signing in at the polling place, a voter will be directed to a booth containing a voting machine set up with the primary election ballot.

To mark the electronic voting machine ballot, press the button beside the name of the candidate. A red light comes on near the upper left corner of the candidate's box once a ion is made.

To change your mind, press the button of the candidate again and the red light will go out.

You may vote for only one candidate per office unless there are instructions to the contrary in the title block for that office. For example, in the St. Croix district, eleven candidates are running in the Democratic primary for senator and voters can vote for as many as seven of them.

The machine will not allow a voter to vote for more candidates than are allowed.

A red light will be flashing in the title box for every office for which you have not made all of the allowable ions, but you do not have to vote for every office. Once you have made a choice for all the offices on the ballot, none of the lights will be blinking.

Each electoral office has an option for writing in a candidate. To do that, press the write-in button, and then press the button next to the small closed window at the top of the voting machine. That window opens to a blank scroll of paper on which the voter can neatly print the candidate's name with the pen hanging on the side of the booth. When you close the window, your vote is cast for the write-in candidate.

Repeat the process to write in other candidates.

Once completely satisfied with your ballot, press the large green "vote" button on the lower right corner and your ballot will be tallied.

Counting the ballots

After the polls close, cartridges that contain the information in the voting machines will be collected and taken to the Elections offices for the official count. As a backup, each machine has a ballot retention system that stores voting information, and a printout indicates the votes cast for each candidate.

Abramson said no individual in the Elections office has access to all passwords and components needed to access the machines. Board members, programmers and technicians each have access to a particular component, and they all work together to tally the votes, Abramson said.

Abramson said the same voting machines have been used for 18 years and are in good working condition. The ELECTron 1242 voting machines were manufactured by the Danaher Corp., and they were upgraded in 2002 to a Microsoft Windows operating system.