The Virginia State Board of Elections this week criticized Fairfax County election officials for failing to promptly remove a poll worker accused of misconduct during Vienna’s May 1 election.
But no agencies, either state or county, have said at this point they plan to further investigate the circumstances surrounding the day, in which three incumbents won re-election by a wide margin over Deborah Brehony and Susan Yancey Stich.
Fairfax County oversees the town’s elections, and any legal probe would come from Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Horan’s office. Horan did not return repeated phone calls this week, though Fairfax County Board of Elections Secretary Maggie Luca said she had not heard of any investigation.
Three days after the election, the State Board of Elections received a handful of complaints by voters, submitted en masse by Brehony. One voter, according to a copy of the complaint, was approached at the booth by a poll worker who told her to “vote for three,” referring to the maximum number of candidates a voter could cast a ballot for.
“I said ‘you mean up to three,’ ” the voter wrote in the complaint. “She said that I should vote for three ‘or the new people will get in.’ ”
Because there were only two challengers, entering three candidates would give a vote to at least one of the incumbents. Voters are not required to cast all three votes.
Fairfax County election officials later that day removed the worker, who was identified as Rhoda Stevens, Luca said. Stevens, reached by phone on Thursday, denied any wrongdoing.
Other complaints charge that poll workers were standing near the booths to see how people were voting.
“Certainly, there was a problem with two officers in the polling place … that should have been addressed promptly on Election Day and was not fully addressed,” said Rosanna Bencoach, policy manager for the State Board of Elections.
Both challengers have said they believe the election events represented a larger problem than the poll workers themselves. According to the complaint, Stevens had said “she was only doing what she was told.”
“The actions that took place on Tuesday, May 1 were not mistakes,” Behony wrote in a letter accompanying the complaint. “They were planned and calculated.”
Vienna Vice Mayor Michael Polychrones emphatically denied that accusation.
“To me, it’s more sour grapes,” he said. “Just look at the numbers — it was almost two to one. There was no way one person making an albeit dumb but innocent comment could have influenced that many people.”
