Election confidence
Virginia election officials need support, not trumped-up prosecutions
Former President Donald Trump has howled for years that his 2020 vote totals were incorrect. In Virginia, it turns out, that was true. Prince William County officials reported this month that a tabulation error meant that Trump was credited with 2,327 more votes than were cast for him. Thankfully, that mistake didn’t affect the outcome, since President Joe Biden carried the commonwealth by more than 450,000 votes, but the discrepancy is notable as Virginia looks toward another presidential vote in November.
Much has been made about the need to “secure” Virginia’s elections following the 2020 presidential contest, which Trump continues to falsely contend was stolen from him. A great many commonwealth Republicans, from Gov. Glenn Youngkin on down, have recklessly indulged this fantasy, feeding nonexistent claims of fraud and election interference.
The absence of evidence has done little to soothe those misguided fears of a deck stacked against Trump and, by extension, the Republican Party. In Virginia, it even inspired the organization of an “Election Integrity Unit” within the office of Attorney General Jason Miyares, which he pitched as necessary to “strengthen confidence in our state elections.”
That unit hasn’t done much since it was announced in 2022, though in a roundabout way it was responsible for uncovering the miscount that saw Trump receive thousands of votes that weren’t cast for him.
Days before the Election Integrity Unit was formally unveiled, the AG’s office secured a grand jury indictment against former Prince William Registrar Michele
White on felony counts of corruption and making false statements and a misdemeanor count of willful neglect of duty.
White, who resigned from her post in 2021, maintained that the prosecution was politically motivated, an attempt to justify the creation of the AG’s election squad. She warned that the charges were an attack on election officials and would deter earnest, trustworthy people from serving in those important roles.
“I feel that my unexplained resignation
and the personal agendas of a few aggrieved staff have created an opportunity for the governor to use me as a way to show a need for the Election Integrity Unit,” White told The Washington Post in October 2022. “It’s just a good show.”
For its part, the AG’s office said that White’s allegations were “utterly false” and Miyares maintained, “The Election Integrity Unit will work to help to restore confidence in our democratic process in the commonwealth.”
The state Department of Elections said in a post-election report that the 2020 vote was “the most safe, secure and successful election in the history of the commonwealth.” But Virginia Republicans used the case against White to cheer the election unit’s creation, even though Miyares’ office declined to detail the alleged wrongdoing.
Then, in December, the attorney general’s office abruptly dropped the two felony charges against White, saying that Sean Mulligan, an assistant registrar in Prince William, had “provided a different version of events from that which he had previously provided to investigators.” The misdemeanor charge was dropped this month.
A week later came word that there were, in fact, errors in the vote totals reported in Prince William County. Trump received 2,327 more votes than were cast for him while Biden received 1,648 fewer votes than he earned. There were smaller discrepancies in the races for Senate and U.S. House as well.
This wasn’t a case of sinister malfeasance, but a mistake in the programming of eight machines in precincts divided between two congressional districts. New Prince William Registrar Eric Olsen, who said he found the mistake after examining the totals for only 15 minutes, blamed “a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment and human error.”
It should be common sense that an honest misstep shouldn’t bring down the full weight of the AG’s office on those working to preserve and protect our democratic process. People truly worried about the integrity of elections in Virginia would work to protect, not prosecute, the public servants doing that vital work.