CHRISTIANSTED — The CEO of WTJX-Channel 12 has written to the Board of Elections chairman asking him to assign workers to a registration drive it wants to sponsor with an online blog site.
“The Virgin Islands Public Broadcasting System (WTJX) and the Virgin Islands Consortium are partnering to present a strong voters registration drive on Saturday September 29, 2018 from 6 p.m. to midnight and we are respectfully requesting the Election System’s collaboration,” WTJX CEO Tanya-Marie Singh wrote on August 2 to Arturo Watlington Jr. “Our plans are to hold this event at the D.C. Canegata grounds on St. Croix. The event will be inclusive of a concert with local and regional artists.”
Singh said in order for the event to be a success, it needs the cooperation of the Board of Elections.
“The Elections System services are essential to this undertaking as the event is free with the condition that one must be a registered voter to enter,” Singh wrote. “We would need board members and/or Elections System staff in attendance to qualify that entrants are indeed voters as well as to register non-voters.”
As part of the concert event, the public television station said that it will conduct a “mock election” that night.
“Additionally, we would like to have a mock election and are requesting two voting machines at the venue so people are allowed to vote,” she wrote. “The results of the mock election will be publicized. Although the event will be on St. Croix, we expect that there will be attendees from St. Thomas so we would like a mock ballot for St. Croix and one for St. Thomas. As an added benefit to the Elections System, new voters will get the opportunity to utilize the voting units in advance of the System’s early voting date.”
Singh said that she was “excited at the possibility of partnering with the Elections System to bring new voters on to the rolls and have them actively be a part of the process.”