Franconia SB Candidate St. John-Cunning disqualified

[Anonymous]

Apologies if this is embedded in the School Board threads, but this seems like a big thing:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/elections/candidatenotice

Evidently 6 signatures on her campaign petition were invalid.

So, it looks like the School Board may be 11-1 after all. The remaining candidate, Pinckney, is GOP-endorsed.

[Anonymous]

The current all - D school board has been a complete disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apologies if this is embedded in the School Board threads, but this seems like a big thing:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/elections/candidatenotice

Evidently 6 signatures on her campaign petition were invalid.

So, it looks like the School Board may be 11-1 after all. The remaining candidate, Pinckney, is GOP-endorsed.

It was more than that - closer to a dozen invalid signatures, as a result of which she didn't have enough valid signatures on her original petition to comply with the candidate filing requirements. An elections official waived it off, but a circuit court judge ruled this week that the elections official didn't have the discretion to waive the error.

I'm sure the Democrats will whine about this, but (1) she can still win with write-in votes; and (2) the FCDC has a lot of money at its disposal to make sure that its endorsed candidates comply with the filing requirements. That's one reason why a party endorsement is so important - the party officials are supposed to help the candidates navigate the technical requirements.

[Anonymous]

This is so shady. Why didn’t the elections office let her know her petition had errors? People have already voted. What happens to their votes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so shady. Why didn’t the elections office let her know her petition had errors? People have already voted. What happens to their votes?

NOVA democrats are extremely shady people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so shady. Why didn’t the elections office let her know her petition had errors? People have already voted. What happens to their votes?

There was a filing deadline back in June, by which time candidates for School Board had to file a petition with at least 125 signatures on a proper form.

St. John-Cunning filed a petition where one page on the form wasn't properly filled out. That meant the signatures on that page were invalid and didn't count towards the 125-signature requirement.

Both St. John-Cunning and the elections official became aware of the defect after the filing deadline had passed. There was no way to "cure" or fix that error, but the elections official thought he was doing her a favor by saying it was a harmless error. The local Republicans objected, and the elections officer reiterated his position that it wasn't significant, so they took the matter to court. Now a local judge has said the elections official didn't have any authority in the matter - if she didn't have enough valid signatures by the filing deadline, the only recourse is to disqualify her as a candidate.

It may sound unfair, but this is how courts routinely deal with legal filing requirements. Miss a deadline, use the wrong font on a document, fail to fill out the form correctly, or check the wrong box - and your filing stands to get bounced. But if your sympathetic to St. John-Cunning, the last thing you should be doing is blaming the elections official, because he was trying to give her a break.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so shady. Why didn’t the elections office let her know her petition had errors? People have already voted. What happens to their votes?

Not sure, but if she didn't meet the requirements to have her name appear on the ballot, it seems those earlier votes should get tossed. It wouldn't affect the votes for other candidates on those ballots.

Later votes where people just write her name in would still count, and now the Ds are mounting a write-in campaign. Franconia is a heavily Democratic district, so there's a good chance she'll still win.

[Anonymous]

Has a write-in campaign ever succeeded?

Those early voters have been disenfranchised.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has a write-in campaign ever succeeded?

Those early voters have been disenfranchised.

Sometimes write-in campaigns work. But this one? She's not an incumbent or a well known name.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has a write-in campaign ever succeeded?

Those early voters have been disenfranchised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write-in_candidate

The early voters never should have been given ballots with her name on them. That was unfair to her opponent, who followed the rules.

[Anonymous]

It looks like her opponent is a solid choice - Harvard Law graduate with long history of involvement in FCPS schools and six kids who've attended or are still attending schools in the Edison pyramid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apologies if this is embedded in the School Board threads, but this seems like a big thing:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/elections/candidatenotice

Evidently 6 signatures on her campaign petition were invalid.

So, it looks like the School Board may be 11-1 after all. The remaining candidate, Pinckney, is GOP-endorsed.

You can still vote for her, she just needs to be written in. They will not count your vote if you circle her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apologies if this is embedded in the School Board threads, but this seems like a big thing:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/elections/candidatenotice

Evidently 6 signatures on her campaign petition were invalid.

So, it looks like the School Board may be 11-1 after all. The remaining candidate, Pinckney, is GOP-endorsed.

And so it begins. One will get in and we find out the full extent of all the bad the current school board has done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so shady. Why didn’t the elections office let her know her petition had errors? People have already voted. What happens to their votes?

There was a filing deadline back in June, by which time candidates for School Board had to file a petition with at least 125 signatures on a proper form.

St. John-Cunning filed a petition where one page on the form wasn't properly filled out. That meant the signatures on that page were invalid and didn't count towards the 125-signature requirement.

Both St. John-Cunning and the elections official became aware of the defect after the filing deadline had passed. There was no way to "cure" or fix that error, but the elections official thought he was doing her a favor by saying it was a harmless error. The local Republicans objected, and the elections officer reiterated his position that it wasn't significant, so they took the matter to court. Now a local judge has said the elections official didn't have any authority in the matter - if she didn't have enough valid signatures by the filing deadline, the only recourse is to disqualify her as a candidate.

It may sound unfair, but this is how courts routinely deal with legal filing requirements. Miss a deadline, use the wrong font on a document, fail to fill out the form correctly, or check the wrong box - and your filing stands to get bounced. But if your sympathetic to St. John-Cunning, the last thing you should be doing is blaming the elections official, because he was trying to give her a break.

No, that election official should absolutely be blamed. They should actually be fired. If you don't have the correct number of verified signers, you don't get on the ballot. This should have been determined months ago. Now, as others have pointed out, many people have already voted.
I'm a Democrat, to be clear. This is not me being happy about this outcome, but this is an extremely basic part of the election process.
I've done this (not in Fairfax). Where I did it, the election officials encouraged you to continue to submit signature pages as you got them, and they'd turn around results to you, so you'd know if any were invalid, and you could keep track of the verified signatures you had. The goal is to have everything confirmed before the deadline, so you don't get an unpleasant surprise after the deadline when it's too late to go get more signatures.

[Anonymous]

Wow, what happens to all the early votes? They were heavily encouraging people to vote early.