The U.S. Virgin Islands held a special legislative election on Saturday, April 8, to fill a vacant seat. Janelle Sarauw, an independent candidate was elected, defeating candidates from the Democratic Party and the Independent Citizens Movement, and some other independent candidates. See this story. Thanks to Michael for this news.
The U.S. Virgin Islands has three ballot-qualified parties: Democratic, Republican, and Independent Citizens Movement.
The election last November had elected 5 Democrats and 2 independents. It was a seven-member district in which voters could vote for seven, but the average number of votes cast was around five. I suspect that most voters voted the extremes (all seven or only one, and relatively few actually voted five).
There were seven Democrat candidates on the ballot, and they finished 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10. Independents finished 3, 7, 8, 11, and 13-18. The ICM candidate finished 12. There were no Republican candidates.
The Democrat who finished 6th and appeared to have been elected was not sworn in because, in a bankruptcy proceedings he had declared that he had not been resident of any place but Tennessee (and thus could not be a resident of the Virgin Islands).
In the special election the candidates who had finished 8-13 ran again. The candidates had finished 14-19 did not. I don’t know whether this was a coincidence, or that the 6 closest were automatically qualified, or the 6 also rans, didn’t bother in the special election. There were also seven new candidates, including 4 Democrats, 2 independents, and 1 Republican.
Thus while the general election had 7 Democrats running for 7 seats, the special election had 6 Democrats running for one seat.
Janelle Sarauw was elected with 29% of the vote.