McClafferty Sues Elections Supervisor to Reverse Delegate Ballot Disqualification

Brett Matthew McClafferty has filed suit against Elections Supervisor Caroline Fawkes in his latest effort to ensure that his name is on the November ballot as a candidate for Delegate to Congress.

Filed in District Court on Wednesday, the civil complaint against Ms. Fawkes and Board of Elections Chair Raymond Williams argues that under local law, his disqualification from the ballot is invalid.

Last week, the Board of Elections voted in an emergency meeting to uphold Ms. Fawkes’ decision to disqualify Mr. McClafferty’s candidacy. The Elections Supervisor ruled that complaints from nomination paper signatories on St. Croix raised serious questions about the integrity of Mr. McClafferty’s signature collection process.

The lawsuit cites Title 18, Section 411 of the Virgin Islands Code, which gives the supervisor of elections the power to examine nomination paperwork and disqualify candidates under certain circumstances. It also quotes a portion of Section 12 under the same title, which states that all nominations accepted after the stipulated examination must be deemed valid unless a case challenging a nomination is made before the district court within five days following the nomination deadline. “No timely judicial petition challenging the petitions was filed in district court” in his matter, Mr. McClafferty argued.

Representing himself in the lawsuit, Mr. McClafferty also cites Title 18 VIC Section 47 to argue that Ms. Fawkes’s investigation was ultra vires. The statute, which still refers to election boards by district, includes among the boards’ duties the investigation of “election frauds, irregularities and violations of this title,” tasking the board to “report all suspicious circumstances to the Virgin Islands Department of Justice for possible prosecution.”