On June 11, independent gubernatorial candidate Positive Nelson sued the U.S. Virgin Islands elections department to require that his name be put on the November 2018 ballot. The U.S. Virgin Islands requires candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor to run as a team. Nelson’s running mate is Gary Udhwani. The elections office invalidated the Nelson-Udhwani petition because it says Udhwani is not a registered voter.

The petition required 100 signatures, and Udhwani circulated many of the petition sheets. The elections office says circulators must be registered voters, and because Udhwani is not a registered voter, his petition sheets are invalid. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Buckley v American Constitutional Law Foundation that governments cannot require petitioners to be registered voters.

The elections office also says that it suspects that some of the petitions were circulated before Nelson had chosen Udhwani, and that after Udhwani was chosen, the petitions were altered to add his name as the Lieutenant Governor running mate. The elections office also argues that the lawsuit does not belong in federal court. The lawsuit is Nelson v Fawkes, 1:18cv-17.

The plaintiffs argue that when the elections office removed Udhwani from the list of registered voters, it had a duty to first notify him that he was about to be disqualified. The elections office replies that their records show that Udhwani might have been removed decades ago, and the elections office has no records that far back to show whether he was notified or not.