Virgina's Waynesboro Elections Officials are Refusing to Certify the November 5th Election, without Changes to Virginia Election Policy, in a Lawsuit filed in Waynesboro Circuit Court.
“The Plaintiffs believe that to certify the election under the current legal and administrative regime, therefore, would be a violation of their oaths of office and, absent court intervention, shall refuse to certify the 2024 election,” the Suit says.
The Suit was brought by the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Waynesboro County Board of Elections, Curtis Lilly (R) and Scott Mares (R), against Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections Susan Beals (R) and Chairman of the Board for the State Board of Elections John O’Bannon (R).
Lilly and Curtis’s Reasoning: Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of Virginia reads, “Secrecy in casting votes shall be maintained, except as provision may be made for assistance to handicapped voters, but the ballot box or voting machine shall be kept in public view and shall not be opened, nor the ballots canvassed nor the votes counted, in secret.”
According to the Complaint, after the Polls Close, the Ballots are Removed from the Ballot Counters, put in a Box, and Sealed alongside the Election Officer’s Signatures. At this point, the Ballots cannot be Opened again without a Court Order.
In February, The Ballot Counters get Tested in Augusta County. Company staff fed a stack of Test Ballots through each Machine containing a known Number of Votes for each Candidate. If the Machine Displays the Correct number of Ballots for each Candidate in the Stack, it Passes. The Test Ballots are then Removed from the stored Data.
On Election Day, the Ballots are then fed through the Tested Machines, Counting as the Votes are Cast. Sealing the Paper Bllots means the Physical Evidence Cannot be compared to the Machine-Counted Numbers, even if the Machines were previously Tested. Lilly and Curtis argue the Machine Programming could tell the Vote Counters to Change how they Process the Ballots after Testing is over.
“Board members are unable to personally review and verify that: the voting machine program being used to count the ballots is keeping a true and accurate count; the voting machine program being used to count the ballots is recording the true and accurate count; and/or that the voting machine record tape accurately represents the ballots cast,” reads the Complaint.
Because they cannot Check the anonymized Ballots themselves, the Complaint states, “the plaintiffs believe that the voting machine is counting the votes in secret because neither the program counting the votes recorded on the ballots nor the ballots themselves can be examined.”
The Suit was filed on Oct. 4th.
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