Official election results established, no change in seat distribution, MPs-elect | THE DAILY HERALD

August 30, 2024

PHILIPSBURG–The Central Voting Bureau (CVB) established the official results of the August 19
snap Parliamentary election on Thursday after three days of counting votes from all twenty
voting districts and all invalid votes.

The CVB wrapped up its counting close to midnight Wednesday. While some MPs gained votes,
the official results show that there were no changes in the distribution of seats or in the 15
Members of Parliament (MPs) elected as announced in the preliminary results.
The CVB had originally intended to count seven districts and all invalid votes, but subsequently
decided to do a full recount of district 5 after encountering a dummy ballot in the pile of invalid
votes and after noting a discrepancy. It then decided to recount all districts.
“Initially we had intended, as a Voting Bureau, because of discrepancies that we had found in
the PVs [Process Verbal – Ed.], to recount 7 of the 20 districts, and then we had decided that
across all 20 districts we would recount all the invalid votes. However, upon our recount of those
districts and the invalid votes, more specifically with respect to District #3 St Maarten Senior
Citizen Recreational Center along with District #5 the Dutch Quarter Community Center – in
those two districts, we did encounter discrepancies that we did not initially expect to encounter,”
Voting Bureau Chairperson Nathalie Tackling said.
“However, we were able to reconcile the numbers in these districts to an extent that brought us
sufficient comfort to be able to establish an election result today [Thursday].”
The CVB intends to notify authorities of what was found during the recount.
“We did want to note for the sake of transparency, we will note all the measures in our report
of what transpired during our recount process and what we found and we do want to note that
for the sake of transparency that any particular findings that we found we will note these and
bring them to the attention of the relevant authorities and then it is, of course, for them to do with
that information what they want or what they will and whether or not any investigations take
place.”
Final results
According to the final results, of the 22,750 eligible voters, the voter turnout was 13,886. Of
that number, 13,696 votes were valid and 190 were invalid.
The results further show that National Alliance (NA) was the largest party with 2,262 votes
earning them three seats; Unified Resilient St Maarten Movement (URSM) secured 2,224 votes
earning them two seats (one of which is a residual seat); Democratic Party (DP) 2,071 votes,
earning them three seats, including a residual seat; United People’s Party (UP) 2,043 votes
earning the party 2 seats; Party for Progress (PFP) 1,946 landing the party two seats; Soualiga
Action Movement 1,250 votes giving it one seat and Nation Opportunity Wealth (NOW) 1,243
votes giving the party one seat.
Parties that did not obtain a seat were Oualichi Movement for Change (OMC) which obtained
521 votes and Empire Culture Empowerment (ECE) 136 votes.
The 15 MPs elect are URSM’s Dr. Luc Mercelina with 1,317 personal votes making him the
highest vote-getter in the elections; PFP’s Ludmila de Weever 690 votes, the second highest
vote-getter; UP’s Omar Ottley 669 votes; DP’s Grisha Heyliger-Marten 480 votes; NOW’s Lyndon
Lewis 446 votes; SAM’s Franklin Meyers 417 votes; DP’s Sarah Wescot-Williams 386 votes; NA’s
Egbert Doran 360 votes; PFP’s Melissa Gumbs 348 votes; DP’s Viren Kotai 338 votes; NA’s Darryl
York 311 votes; NA’s Ardwell Irion 305 votes; Francisco Lacroes 236 votes; URSM’s Richinel Brug
230 votes; and URSM’s Sjamira Roseburg 208 votes