The email sent at 11:20 am Thursday morning was a reminder that at Spotsylvania’s Early Voting site, misrepresentation and misinformation are afoot.
General Registrar Kellie Acors sent her email to about 50 candidates and campaign workers, among others, warning that people were behaving in a manner that is now negatively affecting the community’s impression of her and her staff, and the operation that they run.
Among the concerns – individuals wearing yellow vests and offering to park voters. Per Acors: “Wearing a yellow vest has given the illusion that inhabitant(s) are under Oath and working for our office.”
She goes on to note that people are directing individuals to curbside voting. And they’re also digging “in the trash to reuse sample ballots.”
The problem has become untenable, as Acors notes that she and her staff are receiving “numerous calls, emails and in-person citizen complaints” about these activities.
At least one of the people who is creating the confusion Acors is referring to is Nick Ignacio, seen in the following photo wearing a yellow vest and directing traffic at the polling site.
This photo shows Ignacio (right) and an unidentified individual (left) directing traffic at the Spotsylvania Early Voting site.
It’s more than Acors’ reputation that’s being harmed, however. Voters, too, are being led to vote for people they do not support.
As the Advance has reported, candidates Nick Ignacio (who is running for clerk of court) and Steve Maxwell (who is running for sheriff) have from the beginning of early voting been handing out sample ballots they claim have the endorsement of the Democratic and Republican parties.
This is a claim that both parties adamantly deny.
As Bob Martin told the Advance in September:
The so-called (D) sample ballot contains voting marks … for 11 candidates NOT endorsed by the Spotsylvania County Democratic Committee. The Maxwell campaign claims the sample ballot was approved, but it was not approved by me as the chair of the Spotsy Dems nor by my counterpart in the Republican Committee.
We reached out to Maxwell for additional comment, but have not received a reply.
What these misleading sample ballots do have is a checkmark supporting both Ignacio and Maxwell for the respective offices.
Upping a deceitful game
This week, new misleading sample Democratic ballots began circulating.
One voter is speaking out, warning others of the danger this ballot presents.
This voter said he was fooled by the ballot and those who presented it to him, and as a result, he ended up casting a vote for Ignacio and for Maxwell. That citizen is Pablo Cuadrado of Spotsylvania County.
In an exclusive interview with the Fredericksburg Advance, Cuadrado said that on Tuesday he went to early voting.
A self-described “staunch Democrat,” Cuadrado says he arrived at the polling place, got out of his car, and began moving toward the booth for the Democratic Committee to secure a sample ballot.
He tells the Advance that “someone came up to me about 10 feet from my car with a blue sample ballot in their hands.”
He remembers getting the impression that they were from the party. So he accepted their sample ballot and went in to vote.
Once inside, he told FXBG Advance. “I have my sample ballot to the side of me, and the ballot they print out for you. As I’m marking [the real ballot], I’m [also] marking it on the sample ballot.”
Cuadrado was going to take the sample ballot back to his wife, who was planning to vote later.
“When I left, after voting,” he recalls:
the people that had given me the form were outside again and approached me with what appeared to be an exit poll type thing with only four or so names on it. I thought that they were from the Democratic Party.
Another gentleman then came over, and he had a blue ballot. The top half was the same as mine, but I noticed that the bottom half of the ballot was different.
The ballot Cuadrado took into the booth had “FVP” at the bottom. The one being presented to him post-voting bore the Spotsylvania Democratic Committee name.
That ballot also had recommendations that were different from the one he used to vote. The blue ballot he had first received listed Ignacio and Maxwell as the people to support. This new one he was presented with endorsed Roger Harris for Sheriff and Christy Jett.
Cuadrado asked the man with the sample ballot bearing the Spotsylvania Democratic Committee stamp if he knew his neighbor, a longtime Democratic activist. When he replied affirmatively, Cuadrado was concerned that he had received a misleading sample ballot.
Returning home, he approached his neighbor and showed him both sample ballots. His neighbor then confirmed Cuadrado had, indeed, been handed a misleading sample ballot.
The ballot I had when I went in [to vote] had Ignacio’s name, and I had voted for him.
We asked Cuadrado if he, as a dedicated Democrat, ever questioned the first sample ballot he was handed and that he used to guide his vote.
He told the Advance that, like many voters, he knows more-prominent names like Abigail Spanberger’s, but doesn’t know local candidates as well.
I don’t look for the names, I just know that I’m going to vote Democrat.
And for Cuadrado, a blue ballot presented to him by people he felt were Democrats was enough to convince him to take it.
Illegal?
The Advance checked with several attorneys, and none were aware of any statutes that directly forbid people from passing out misleading sample ballots.
Acors has previously said that so long as the ballots meet the Department of Elections’ criteria for size, font-type, and color, there is nothing that she or her office can do to stop it.
So for now, people misrepresenting themselves and promoting misleading information appear to be above the written law.
That’s little consolation to Cuadrado, however, who was mislead into thinking he was supporting Democrats.
I felt it was underhanded and deceptive.
