Nebraska-based Systems & Software, the company responsible for the voting machines used in Saturday’s election, has responded to concerns brought up by former Virgin Islands Supervisor of Elections John Abramson Jr., who demanded an explanation in a letter addressed to St. Croix District Board of Elections Chair, Adelbert Bryan, for why some candidates in Saturday’s election ostensibly lost votes as the night progressed.
According to Systems & Software spokeswoman Kathy Rogers, an ES&S associate accidentally uploaded a “results file” that contained test data, not actual results. The released statement did not reveal at what time or times the error occurred but iterated that the results were unofficial at the time the faux pas happened, and that the correct vote totals were in the end “posted accurately”.
On Saturday night while the primary election results were being tallied, the VI Elections system website posted what looked like three different point-in-time vote counts, one at 9:14 p.m., another at 9:41 p.m., and the last one at 9:47 p.m.
When votes are being counted, the tallies are only supposed to either stay as is for candidates or increase — not decrease. But Saturday certain candidates saw their tallies decreased rather than remaining unchanged or increasing. Apparently some votes simply vanished into thin air.
Former Senator Emmett Hansen’s vote count sat at 675 by 9:14 p.m., however by 9:47 p.m., it decreased to 664, and said number became his final tally. And State Chairman of the Republican Party, John Canegata, who was running to retain his seat, went from 76 votes to a final tally of 55 votes.
It is not known whether Abramason is satisfied with Systems & Software’s response.
Tags: election 2014 virgin islands, errors, vi vote 2014, voting machines
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