Supplied photos
Election season ended last month for most of Virginia. But in Fluvanna County, one race—roiled by allegations of Election Day misconduct—is finally coming to a close. With the Election Day tally divided by just 20 votes, the Cunningham District School Board contest between incumbent Charles Rittenhouse and challenger Sarah Johnson went to a recount December 2.
Rittenhouse has represented the Cunningham District since 2012. At press time, the recount was ongoing.
Kelsey Cowger, who worked with the Johnson campaign, filed a formal complaint with the state board of elections on November 6. The complaint alleges that Rittenhouse spoke to voters still in their vehicles and crossed the 40-foot line around the polling place in Scottsville to campaign multiple times on Election Day.
Photos taken by the Johnson campaign on Election Day, and included with the complaint, show Rittenhouse speaking to two people in their vehicles, a black Toyota truck and a dark red Jeep.
When invited to comment, Rittenhouse declined an interview but sent a written statement. “The complaint that I was supposedly approaching people before or as they exited their vehicles, is absolutely untrue,” said Rittenhouse. “I have not seen the picture, but the description sounds like my neighbor’s truck. He did pull up to where I was standing, I turned around, he rolled down his window, and asked if he was allowed to park there. I told him the sign said, ‘voter parking,’ so he should be fine. We may have exchanged a hello and how have you been, but we never discussed the campaign or voting.”
Roman Bakke, vice chair of the Fluvanna Electoral Board, is also named in the complaint. A video from Election Day shows Bakke telling Johnson and current school board member James Kelley that they created “an environment that is confrontational.” The Johnson campaign can be seen near, but not crossing, the 40-foot line in videos from Election Day that the campaign shared with the Fluvanna Electoral Board
“My goal was mainly to remind voters that day that there was a back of the ballot and I was on it,” said Johnson. “It’s a two-sided ballot. This year, the school board is the only race on the back of it. A lot of people don’t remember to flip their ballot.”
Prior to the recount, a total of 2,498 ballots were cast in the Cunningham District School Board race. Based on data from the Virginia Department of Elections, most Cunningham District voters completely filled out their ballots, with 2,685 votes cast from the precinct in the gubernatorial election.
With the contest between Rittenhouse and Johnson so close, every vote cast—or not, if voters didn’t flip their ballots over—was crucial. Candidates and campaigns can engage with voters outside the 40-foot line under Virginia law, but cannot “hinder or delay a qualified voter from entering or leaving a polling place.”
Beyond alleged campaign law violations, videos from the Johnson campaign raise questions about the neutrality of the Cunningham polling site. While state guidelines prefer precincts to be in government buildings, two voting districts in Fluvanna do not have public sites compliant with accessibility requirements. As a result, the Cunningham District’s precinct is located at Antioch Baptist Church—where Rittenhouse serves as a deacon.
A video from Election Day shows Rittenhouse, Johnson, and supporters discussing the rainbow knit hat Johnson had on, and its potential offensiveness to members of the church. In response to Johnson’s statement that the site was “not a church today, it’s a polling precinct,” Rittenhouse says in the video: “It’s a church out of this line,” waving at the 40-foot marker. “It’s a church property.”
The Johnson campaign’s complaint has been forwarded to the commonwealth’s attorney’s office. While the state board of elections weighs the Johnson campaign’s concerns, the Fluvanna Electoral Board and Board of Supervisors are considering changing the polling site for the Cunningham District.
“Most of the other buildings that might work are churches also,” said Scott Newman, chair of the Fluvanna Electoral Board. “We are going to look into it. I think now both the Democrat and Republican members of the Board [of Supervisors] now agree we need to find a more neutral spot, if we can. It’s not that the church has done anything wrong, necessarily, but Democratic voters have complained in the past about not really feeling welcome there.”
