as we started we can your honor that one technical detail we have is there is no time or showing for us so we don't have our normal red yellow and green lights all right you can see  hour for minutes please ok i'll let you know when you get close to eleven minutes thank you you may proceed your honour's this case is about fundamental principles of democracy it's the right to run for office it's the right only because section three forty two as a title eighteen applies only to nomination petitions there's no way to read that any other way unless you remove the language  nomination petitions from the sat have think that's correct you have a difference calendar you not in the virgin islands that is correct and the nomination papers for the subject are to canada seize and nomination petitions for the subchapter one are all due on the same day so the sore loser tended to see cannot occur now what can there could at least when we adopted the code back in one thousand sixty three what could conceivably have happened is someone could have filed both a nomination petition and nomination paper for the same office on that day and we believe of course that's what section four ten was designed to address when it was adopted  by referencing candidates for public office and not using words like candidates for public office in a primary it deals with both primary and general elections yes  because i'm trying to narrow down where the disagreement might be between your adversaries white astro city and listen to this because i expect to do the same thing if i have the opportunity and with respect to the words political designation that is doesn't make sense situation and therefore we don't need to resolve that issue for the purposes of resolving the says mr simpson in the election code although there are separate requirements for nomination sions and nomination papers i don't see any definition of either term particular and it files his or her petition do you read it as the deadline by which nomination decisions would be due for something different petition and how do you recognize him from your point of view this statute of pride lies to individuals who want to run for public office were registered with a political party who have filed a nomination that is if they have weather the party doesn't nation indicates an affiliation that may be referring to the fact that the when you file the nomination petition there is a blank to fill in it for your party so it may be referring to the possibility that correct you would follow the petition but conceivably a party that a person a candidate could file a petition for get to put down which party he was running for iraq again or so that may not may explain it but other than that i can't i cannot come up with an explanation or is it perhaps you doing the person right registers with political party x by the time they file a nomination  t this was this is actually discussed in the record there was not clear even from the supervisor of elections council how the designation would be whether it says no party or simply it's blank p which would stand for no party or could be odd or could be constitution or could be any other couldn't be agreed for you have such a thing in the virgin islands not that i'm familiar with i think people believe that the no party designation is what actually is given but i don't think the record stablish is that one way or the other at it and that code doesn't provide for it it does not provide for identifying someone as no party or independent or not otherwise paper does not specify a political body then it shall be designated as independent mr simpson your time is up to you but do you have anything else that you want to add at this point least over the the statutory questions which are before us not not the constitutional questions the statutory questions we have to interpret and attempt to apply the law of the territory the virgin mr simpson and that was with the consequence of reading the statute as he suggests it should be read would mean that someone from a political party this case the chairman of the republican party would be running with a no party or designation or as an independent and with the electorate think then that they are voting for somebody they would never vote for a republican but now they're voting for somebody they believe is independent because they skipped the the or the ordinary process of the party having primary having a primary and nominating somebody does so does this circumvent the way the primary process for somebody from a political party that may not be the favored party in a particular jurisdiction in the virgin islands i think that the question doesn't circumvent it well yes because there are two different avenues for pursuing the nomination does a temper mis circumvented i think is the main question there and the answer is no because we don't aren't we it's very easy to prevent this from happening in the legislature could have done that and they didn't when they adopted  pennsylvania and as the show they deliberately did not and to try to read three forty two essay as accomplishing that when it doesn't even mention nomination papers i think is  so yes it circumvents it or not improperly at it but it doesn't create ballot confusion and to the extent that it might create your concern that someone would vote for a republican when they would never vote for a republican if they knew they were a republican i think that's an issue that can be solved by the candidate candidacies of other candidates who want to bring that out that's something that is easily rectified in the you know the spirited debate that we have in our democracy doesn't we proceed good afternoon may it please the court i'm can really solve very i represent the supervisor of elections caroline fox and the government of the virgin islands in this matter my o out talking about the right to be a candidate and i'd like to remind everyone there is no right to be on the ballot or even a right to vote they are political privileges which the legislature ma regulate to any extent not prohibited by the state or federal constitutions the legislatures intent is clear in the virgin islands code there are two separate paths to canada you either subchapter one or subchapter two but not both and that is very evident in section four ten you are not allowed to file both a petition and a nomination paper and you are not allowed to be both a republican and an independent yes i believe it would apply to a party office because you would have to file a nomination petition for a party office you agree there's a difference between a public office and oreo's i do that's how we what is the consequence if if he is elected if he wins the primary race and we determine that there's no prohibition from him running for again depending on whether the court remanded the case back to the supervisor or whether or not that if the court was just rule on both issues for ten and section three hundred two a it's we can say with or ten when when he was disqualified when the superintendent i think him from being the lieutenant governor candidate disqualifies titian i'm sorry peeper it didn't rely on for him being on the ballot but i have a number of of a number of thoughts on that your honor first of all it seems rather disingenuous for the candidate to claim now that he would have petition when in his complaint he didn't want to with changing his republican registration because then he couldn't run for republican chair that seems like two sides of the same coin to me but he the court could remand back to the supervisor she could put for ten b as the reason for the defect and he could have many days to cure if he chose to withdraw then the only other candidate would there would not have been a primary if that it all happened because if there's only one candidate that position is on the ballot the supervisor deems that person to be the winner so it is still sounds of all that all of well the district court discussed that issue she decided that she didn't need to address it it was not specifically stated by the supervisor that's correct but if we manning would be a useless formality the the clear nomination papers and nomination additions for the same office wasn't that the isn't that accurate i don't believe s don't believe in adding language to a statute section portend he is explicit a nomination the titian a nomination paper but not vote there is nothing in the code explicitly that would lead you to that conclusion unless you add it is not both if anything ten lends itself to reading the rest of the code to you for denting a member of a political party from running as an independent and preventing both nomination petitions and nomination papers from the same candidate for any off it is unfortunate that the title of the section is not to be included in our analysis and i grant that the reading of the section itself is difficult but when it's read in conjunction as it should be and given meaning in the entire scope of the code then there is an obvious implication the prohibition in section three forty eight of using a political party's name or any name deceptively similar the mandatory designation of independent independent has to have some meaning maureen webster dictionary second definition of independent is not bound by or committed to a political party it's a very common definition of the word doesn't even need to be defined in the code if the legislature did not mandatory or mandate a designation of independent to allow members of political parties to run under that deceptive title that would deceive the voters and the state has a right and a compelling interest to avoid voter confusion and at section three eighty one for romance or that there's a material difference between section three eighty one as it appears in the virgin islands and that section as it appears  here explanation for why the difference exists i believe that the legislature wrote this statute differently but came to the same result they did not use the exact language that the pennsylvania code uses with regard to disaffiliate but by requiring the independent designation and by prohibiting the dual fight the fact that it's not listed in the what happens if say hypothetically we were goes say that the superintendent was correct in the decision earning lieutenant governor candidate what happen by each voter of a single vote a political to both officers things so they are required to run together and you make some mentioned earlier that if we upheld your position to strike what's the significance of august twelfth on aug twelfth that is what's called the casting of the lots we have an election calendar which it would help you is available on the virgin islands website elections website and so after the primary which is supposed to be tomorrow and all the votes are counted there will be a casting of rocks which occurs on august twel been decided by august twelfth will be a question at least although there is not a living in here there's not any injunction any or there's no there's no injunction pending appeal least the question as to whether or not these two individuals would be on the ballot correct this case is not decided by august at all right now it's my understanding based on the district court's decision in the fact that there is no injunction pending appeal that they are currently not candidates so they would not be their names would not be in that past the is there a date when the well the entire calendar has been reworked this year in order to satisfy the move act and get the absentee ballots out to the military and overseas voters they need to be mailed out by s so the idea of having the primary earlier than we have ever had it before is all to get the ballots prepared in time to the now doubt by september nineteenth we're also using the machines this year and information september nineteenth as at least the mailing date for military ballots correct that because they need to be mailed out forty five days before the general election in november same questions but focusing on the nomination it's ition language at the time of the call to the nomination titian a few questions about that you're asking us to read in words in order for it to cover someone who can be said to apply unfortunately but can be read to apply why two candidates filing nomination fissions but when you include that section with the at least three other sections in the code then you see the obvious implication of the legislative intent despite the fact that they use the word nomination titian in that particular language but also due to the discrepancy between the title of the section and the wording of the section i really can't stress enough the fact that if the appellant's reading of the code prevails then the primary process will be rendered meaningless and the voter registration and declaration of party affiliation is meaningless and so that lends a good intent of having two separate pat i read it several several times myself trying to make sense of that last sentence i've looked at definitions of whether i'm personally written in it so that it would read if the political party designation indicates an affiliation with the political party and i believe that all reverts back to the candidate's registration ok that's my personal reading as the nomination papers signed by qualified electors so under three eighty one a any qualified elector regardless of their party registration be able to sign the nomination  know candidacy or no wide open direct access to ballot nomination papers and it's a bit on absolutely ok but anyone who is not a party member was nowhere in three eighty one this goes so he would automatically receive the designation of independent their compliance with three hundred one technically on the papers yes sounds very thank you very much or broken on that day so that certainly suggests that the ballot does not have to be printed before the third friday following the primary which i think comes to august twenty second or so but i think it's very important to recognize that governor and governor that point they will be either aligning with the prevailing democratic candidate or they will be seeking to support independent candidates who are running for lieutenant governor governor and if my clients are not  knowledged as viable candidates on that date by eight o'clock tomorrow night they stand a very good chance of losing some of that momentum that others will gain so i would urge the court to try to rule by tomorrow but it lou of that i would urge that the injunction pending appeal be entered so that at least some indication is given that they are potentially valid candidates mr simpson just to inform both and neither of those two parties have a candidate on the primary or one candidate advancing by virtue of the fact that they were the only ones running now you know as we pointed out that's a problem for mr pedagog he wants to run it would be one to run for lieutenant governor in the republican ticket but he doesn't have a republican willing to run as governor candidate and so he can't do that this is it's only opportunity to  her argument by talking about it's not a right to run for office or to be elected and we agree with that it's their right to seek nomination is the right to go out there and say i'm a candidate and these are my ideas and we can make the virgin islands a better place so i would again urge the courts to act as quickly as possible on behalf of an issue and hopefully a final decision as quickly as possible but in the meantime if not an injunction that would  ensure that it required that the elections board and supervisor elections treat them as viable candidates until such time as this court rules that would of course include if that gets to the point were printed in the ballot that include or sample ballots