At several polling stations across Spotsylvania today, sample ballots with misleading information continued to be find their way into voters’ hands.
At Battlefield Elementary School late this afternoon, the Advance was handed a yellow sample ballot with the header “Republican Sample Ballot,” and the man distributing the document referred to it as “a ballot from the Republican side.”
There was no printed statement saying who paid for it, and both Matt Strickland and Nick Ignacio were identified as candidates to vote for. Neither has the endorsement of the Spotsylvania County Republican Committee.
The Advance returned to the gentleman distributing the sample ballot and asked why it carries the “Republican Sample Ballot” header when it is not the official ballot of the Republican Committee and contains misleading information – Matt Strickland is not endorsed by the Republican Party.
“But he is running for a write-in campaign,” the man responded.
The Advance reiterated that Strickland was not endorsed by the party, to which the individual passing out the sample ballot responded: “It doesn’t matter … because … we’re not telling anybody this is an official ballot.”
Asked how a person is to understand his earlier statement that he’s handing out a sample “ballot from the Republican side,” his response was: “I apologize if you didn’t like the way” I presented the material. He then went on to suggest that a line of other people were doing the same thing and we should speak with them.
None of the sample ballots we reviewed purporting to be put forward by the Democratic Committee contained misleading information.
Just down Courthouse Road from Battlefield Elementary at the Eastland United Methodist Church polling station, Mark Houghton, who was handing out sample ballots for candidates endorsed by the Democratic Committee, shared another misleading ballot he had witnessed distributed earlier in the day.
This one was being circulated by Nick Ignacio, according to Houghton. It was labeled “Spotsylvania Republican Voters” and identified both Ignacio and Roy Searles, who is running for Board of Supervisors, as the candidates of choice. Neither Searles nor Ignacio were at the polling station at the time.
Finding Loopholes
“Unfortunately,” Litchfield said, one doesn’t have to say who paid for the publication if it’s less than $1,000 for a statewide candidate, or less than $200 for everyone else, per Virginia State code 24.2-955.1.
According to the gentleman we received the misleading sample ballot from, it cost less than $200 to produce and was produced by an individual.
Martin Davis is Editor-in-Chief of the Advance. Reach him at [email protected]
