ST. CROIX — Despite challenges from three members of the Virgin Islands Board of Elections and three prospective candidates who sought to intervene in the suit, a federal judge on Wednesday closed the lawsuit between the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands and the Elections System of the Virgin Islands, Supervisor of Elections Caroline Fawkes, and Raymond Williams, board chair.
Following that ruling, the prospective candidates filed a new lawsuit on Friday that challenges a mediated settlement agreement between the Democratic Party and the defendants.
The new lawsuit seeks to block enforcement of the agreement, arguing it imposes unconstitutional ballot access requirements and improperly gives political parties control over candidate certification.
Chief Judge Robert Molloy ruled that the original case the Democratic Party filed ended automatically once the plaintiff filed a voluntary dismissal following last week’s mediated settlement agreement. All six individuals raised objections that the settlement was never properly authorized.
The pushback began after the parties reached their mediated settlement agreement on April 23. The next day, attorney Peter Lynch, representing the Democratic Party of the Virgin Islands, filed an emergency motion seeking a telephonic status conference. He cited emails from individual board members suggesting the settlement might be invalid because Williams allegedly lacked authority to sign it without full board approval. Lynch characterized the communications as a potential “anticipatory breach” and warned there was “talk of not honoring the agreement,” raising concerns about the tight timeline leading up to the August 1 primary election.
READ MORE: VI Democratic Party attorney asks court for meeting as Elections Board members challenge settlement
Assistant Attorney General Ariel Smith-Francois, who represented the defendants — Williams, Fawkes, and the Elections System of the Virgin Islands — opposed the request, arguing no court intervention was necessary. She maintained that the board itself was not a party to the litigation and that all required actions under the agreement had been properly authorized by Fawkes in her official capacity. The court agreed, denying Lynch’s emergency motion on Monday and advising that if the plaintiff believed a breach had occurred, it should file a separate motion to enforce the agreement.
Several board members submitted filings this week raising questions about the authority of Williams and Fawkes to enter into the settlement.
Board member Cleopatra Peter filed a declaration outlining what she described as structural and statutory concerns. She argued that the Elections System is not a single legal entity and that the supervisor of elections does not have unilateral authority to bind the board without formal authorization.
Similarly, Barbara LaRonde filed an affidavit asserting that the board never convened or voted to approve the agreement, contending that neither Williams nor Fawkes had legal authority to bind the board.
Another member, Harriet Mercer, filed an affidavit stating that board members had not agreed to be bound by the settlement and asking the court to clarify its legal effect.
Despite the filings by the board members, Molloy proceeded to order the case closed. In a footnote, Molloy also addressed filings submitted by three prospective candidates who sought to intervene in the lawsuit — independent Shelley Moorhead for delegate to Congress and Republican Collister Fahie and Democrat Lorelei Monsanto for the Legislature of the Virgin Islands.
Magistrate Judge Emile Henderson III denied a motion by the three proposed intervenors to join the lawsuit, citing a procedural defect because all filed pro se but only Moorhead signed it. Henderson proceeded to consider the motion as seeking relief only on Moorhead’s behalf, finding Moorhead lacked standing because he could not show a real, concrete injury tied to the case, as he was only a “prospective candidate” who had not been denied anything. The judge noted Moorhead’s claims were speculative, that he failed to connect any alleged harm to the defendants’ conduct, and that he could not show his claims would be redressed by a favorable ruling.
The proposed intervenors subsequently filed three separate documents since the settlement was reached — a notice alerting the court to what they described as threshold defects in the agreement, a motion asking for limited judicial review of whether it was properly authorized, and a motion asking the court to stay entry of any dismissal until their pending objections are resolved. Molloy wrote that any such requests are moot, emphasizing that the principal parties had resolved their claims and that proposed intervenors have no right to prevent a settlement.
“The principal parties in this matter have entered into a settlement agreement resolving their dispute,” Molloy noted. “An intervenor has no right to prevent the parties from settling their claims.”
Molloy wrote in his order that the plaintiff’s notice of voluntary dismissal is “self-executing and automatic” under federal rules, requiring no further court action. He acknowledged the filing, declared all pending motions moot, and directed the clerk of court to close the case.
The Democratic Party filed suit April 9, arguing that elections officials had moved forward with their own procedures for the 2026 primary election without implementing the party’s plan to vet and certify its own candidates. The party claimed that process is protected under the First Amendment.
During a prehearing conference, Molloy ordered the parties into mediation, suggesting the conflict stemmed more from a breakdown in communication than a fundamental legal disagreement.
READ MORE: Judge orders mediation in Democratic Party lawsuit over 2026 primary election
The parties reached an agreement on April 23 establishing a coordinated process for candidate certification ahead of the primary, which led to the case’s dismissal.
READ MORE: VI Democratic Party and Elections System reach agreement, resolving primary election lawsuit
Lynch filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on Monday, stating the dispute had been fully resolved through the mediated settlement agreement. Because no answer or motion for summary judgment had been filed, the dismissal was effective immediately.
On behalf of the defendants, Smith-Francois also filed a motion to dismiss, citing the same settlement agreement. That motion, along with all pending filings, was rendered moot by Molloy’s order.
After Molloy closed the Democratic Party’s case, Moorhead, Fahie, and Monsanto filed a separate verified complaint in District Court on Friday, naming Fawkes and the Board of Elections as defendants.
The 24-page complaint advances five constitutional claims, targeting three distinct problems with the territory’s current ballot access framework. The lawsuit addresses the signature disparity between independent and party-affiliated candidates, ESVI’s policy of rejecting petition signatures from “inactive voters,” and the dual-certification framework created by the April 23 settlement agreement itself.
On the signature disparity, the complaint argues that under Virgin Islands law, an independent candidate for delegate to Congress must collect at least 200 signatures — 100 from each of two districts — while party-affiliated candidates face materially lower requirements, violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
On inactive voters, the complaint challenges a Clarification and Enforcement Notice signed by Caroline Fawkes declaring signatures from “inactive” voters invalid. It argues this is internally inconsistent, as those voters remain eligible to cast ballots upon verification, making their exclusion from the petition process arbitrary and not rationally related to a legitimate government interest.
The complaint also targets the April 23 settlement, arguing that conditioning Democratic primary ballot access on the party’s internal certification process — which is not authorized by statute or governed by public standards — improperly converts private party decisions into state action with binding consequences for candidates who had no role in the mediation. The complaint details the specific situation of each plaintiff.
Moorhead, running as an independent, must meet the full 200-signature requirement while navigating the exclusion of inactive voters, without access to party infrastructure or voter databases. Fahie faces a separate risk, as the legal status of the Republican Party of the Virgin Islands remains unresolved before the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, raising the possibility he could be disqualified through no fault of his own, according to the lawsuit. In Monsanto’s case, if the Democratic Party declines to certify her candidacy — for any reason or none — she could be excluded from the primary ballot before the May 27 deadline the Democratic Party has to submit its certified candidate list to the Elections System.
Plaintiffs seek a declaration that the 200-signature requirement for independent candidates is unconstitutional; an injunction barring enforcement of a higher signature burden on Moorhead than on party candidates; an injunction prohibiting exclusion of inactive voters from petition counts in the 2026 cycle; a declaration that the settlement’s dual-certification framework constitutes unconstitutional state action; and injunctions blocking its use as a condition of ballot access, including any requirement that candidates obtain certification from a private political organization absent publicly articulated, judicially reviewable standards.
