Waynesboro voters sue to block election board’s potential refusal to certify 2024 results

By: Markus Schmidt - October 23, 2024 9:56 am

Five Waynesboro voters have filed a lawsuit to prevent the majority of the Waynesboro Board of Elections from following through on their controversial pledge to refuse certification of the November 2024 election results, a move they argue would violate Virginia state law. ... The plaintiffs — Jennifer Lewis, Ann Criser-Shedd, Greg Fife, Chris Graham and Andrea Jackson — are seeking a court order to compel the election officials to certify the city’s votes.

The lawsuit, filed in Waynesboro Circuit Court on Oct. 21, comes after two GOP officials from Waynesboro filed their own lawsuit challenging Virginia’s voting system ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election while threatening to not certify the results. ... In their complaint, Curtis Lilly, the chairman of the Waynesboro Electoral Board, and Scott Mares, the board’s vice chair, expressed their concerns over the reliability of electronic voting systems, which they argue are prone to inaccuracies. Instead, they demanded that all ballots be counted by hand.

However, state law does not currently require a mandatory hand-count unless irregularities are proven, and all paper ballots are required to be counted by optical scanning machines, which help speed up the counting process and reduce the risk of human error.

{snip}

Markus Schmidt
Markus is an award-winning journalist who covers Virginia politics from the state Capitol in Richmond. His coverage area includes the General Assembly, the executive branch and elections in Virginia.

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.