PHILIPSBURG--St. Maarten’s Main Voting Bureau hit a snag Wednesday morning when it was discovered that numbers from some of the polling stations had been entered into the wrong columns/lines by the station heads in their reports.
This led to a re-check of the report numbers submitted by the chairpersons of the 16 polling stations to ensure all numbers were in order.
Main Voting Bureau Chairman Lt. Governor Franklyn Richards told the press that numbers had been logged on the “wrong line,” making it necessary to reopen the “suitcase” with original documentation from Friday’s Parliamentary election. However, he did not elaborate on what exactly had gone wrong with the entries.
However, that process will not affect final count of votes and the overall election results. The Main Voting Bureau, by law, has to double-check the documentation from the polling stations within days of the elections, to make the election results official.
Verification of the elections results should be released on Thursday or Friday.
Friday’s election saw William Marlin’s National Alliance (NA) win all three of St. Maarten’s parliamentary seats, leaving main rival Democratic Party (DP) out of the last Parliament of the Netherlands Antilles.
There was no protest against the results by any of the three parties that contested the elections. The third party was Gracita Arrindell’s People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA).
