Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the board voted against issuing a public apology to poll watcher Ann Williams. Rather, the board did vote to have Elections Supervisor Caroline Fawkes apologize, 6-5. The Source has corrected the story and regrets the error.
A Board of Elections hearing to address complaints of voting irregularities in the 2024 election devolved into a contentious shouting match Friday, with board members reigniting a long-smoldering feud over election controls.
There were two official complaints on the agenda: One voter was placed in handcuffs and removed from a polling place by Virgin Islands Police Department officers Nov. 4. Another woman, a poll watcher, said an officer shouted and cussed at her on the first day of early voting.
Ann Williams, who served as a poll watcher during the 2024 election cycle, described an incident that occurred on October 14, 2024, the first day of early voting, at a polling site where she said she was removed from the voting area by an elections official.
According to Williams, a confrontation followed after she attempted to address voters in line. A police officer responded with hostility, directing profanity toward her and a board member who had intervened. She also reported that seating accommodations previously available to her were taken away the following day, which she attributed to retaliatory behavior by election staff.
While her complaint to the Virgin Islands Police Department was reviewed and resolved, Williams said her concerns to the Board of Elections went unanswered until recently. She requested a public apology to acknowledge what occurred and highlight the need for greater accessibility and respect within the election process, especially for seniors and individuals with disabilities.
Elections Supervisor Caroline Fawkes disputed that the officer had tried to remove Williams from the poll, although it may have been within the rules to do so. Time limits for each poll watcher had been implemented because of the number of candidates. Twenty extra people in the room was impractical, Fawkes said.
Delays from candidates in certifying their poll watchers further confused the matter, she said. Fawkes allowed poll watchers limited access but no poll watcher was allowed to stay all day.
This launched one of many disorderly intervals in the three-hour meeting held jointly in St. Thomas and St. Croix via Microsoft Teams.
Board Member Cleopatra Peter and others repeatedly questioned Fawkes’ authority to levy rules about poll watchers and other voting intricacies. Board Chair Raymond Williams countered again and again that such questions were outside the scope of the hearing, which was solely about complaints from outside the board. Peter and Williams shouted over each other for long stretches of the meeting, with Peter loudly interjecting points of parliamentary procedure and Williams replying: “Member Peter, you are out of order.”
“Are you discriminating against me?” Peter replied. Later in the hearing, she bellowed that voting in the Virgin Islands was like historic civil rights struggles of the Jim Crow-era American South. “We come from where Black people are oppressing Black people and we say nothing.”
While some board members said an apology to Williams was easy and should have been made immediately, others disagreed, saying the board had done nothing wrong and VIPD’s apology was sufficient. A first motion for a public apology failed, but the second, which required Fawkes to apologize, passed on a 6-5 vote.
Mary Moorhead’s complaint rekindled rancor at the meeting, calling into question the hearing’s legality because it lacked legal counsel and a stenographer.
Williams said no stenographer was available and that the meeting was being recorded for later transcription.
Moorhead, a St. Croix member of the Board of Education, and Williams clashed verbally several times. Moorhead repeatedly attempting to interject and Williams reminding her she was not a member of the Elections Board.
“You are not running this meeting,” Williams exclaimed several times over the next hour.
In her testimony, Moorhead said she had contacted Fawkes in the days before the polls opened to remind the supervisor that boxes for paper ballots were required by law. When Moorhead arrived to vote, she found no such box, only the DS200 voting machine for vote tabulation.
Moorhead refused to place her ballot in the machine and took a seat inside the polling station.
“I want to cast my ballot but I don’t want to put it in the DS200. I want to put it in a paper box that the law says I have the right to do so,” she roared to the board.
Police officers advised Moorhead she was not allowed to linger in the polling place. When she refused to leave, she was handcuffed and taken outside but not charged with any crime. Moorhead provided several affidavits from people who witnessed the incident. She said she drove directly to the Attorney General’s office and then to the FBI, where she spoke to an agent.
Moorhead then cast her ballot at another polling station, using the DS200 machine.
Board member Barbara LaRonde said the boxes had been lent to the Virgin Islands Democratic Party for their primary. A January 2024 court ruling took party primaries out of Election Systems’ hands months earlier.
Fawkes said the law Moorhead was referencing, requiring a box for paper ballots, was still part of the V.I. Code but had been superseded by another law allowing for digital tabulation.
There was also a suggestion that the DS200 was, in essence, a ballot box like any other.
Board Secretary Florine Audaine-Hassel suggested asking the attorney general for an opinion on which law was to be followed. The motion passed 6-4.
The board took two votes — one requiring Fawkes to issue an apology to Moorhead and one requiring both Fawkes and the board to apologize. Both were voted down, 4-6 and 3-6, respectively.
An immediate motion to adjourn the meeting failed on a 5-5 tie. The division was not over.
“I’m still trying to discern what business is still before the board,” Raymond said. “Do we have a further agenda?”
The meeting then skidded into chaotic side conversations about the legitimacy of the hearing and whether it was possible to discuss policies on how to address similar situations. When order was restored, several board members pleaded for some way to address Moorhead’s concerns and future issues. Williams suggested those measures could be formulated in individual committee meetings.
This sparked concern that board members didn’t know who was on which committees.
Someone in St. Croix started shouting, “We the people! My voice is my vote!”
“Mute her mic,” Williams responded from St. Thomas.
A motion to end the meeting passed 9-1.
