Obenshain Lead Cut to 28 votes, Brian Schoeneman Extends Provisional Ballot Deadline in Fairfax

written by Jeanine Martin November 9, 2013

At the end of the day on Saturday, with Norfolk and Alexandria having weighed in, the count now stands at:

Obenshain 1,103,390
Herring 1,103,362
Obenshain leads by 28 votes

Brian Schoeneman, Secretary of the Electoral Board in Fairfax County, has extended the deadline for contesting provisional ballots from Friday at noon until Tuesday. Under the code of VA it is legal for him to do so:

va code sec. 24.2-653 The electoral board shall meet on the day following the election and determine whether each person having submitted such a provisional vote was entitled to do so as a qualified voter in the precinct in which he offered the provisional vote. If the board is unable to determine the validity of all the provisional ballots offered in the election, or has granted any voter who has offered a provisional ballot an extension to the following day as provided in subsection A, the meeting shall stand adjourned from day to day, not to exceed seven calendar days from the date of the election, until the board has determined the validity of all provisional ballots offered in the election.

My first question, does Brian’s decision open a whole can of worms for every jurisdiction in the state? Will every jurisdiction now extend the deadline for provisional ballots? My second question, why is Brian Schoeneman, who purports to be a republican, helping democrats by extending this deadline?

Jeanine Martin

Also known as Lovettsville Lady, I am a Republican activist in the wilds of western Loudoun County.

Greg Letiecq

It is about doing what is right and serving the cause of justice, regardless of whatever partisan advantage may accrue. It is what lawyers are supposed to do, and what his oath of office requires. Just because folks on the other side may not always discharge their duty with the same honor does not mean we shouldn’t always strive to.

I disagree with Mr. Schoeneman on a fairly regular basis, but in this instance he is to be commended. As long as the ballots are fairly and legally cast, we should always ensure that every single one of them is counted.
Brian W. Schoeneman

Jeanine, you have no idea what you’re talking about, as usual.

I am not helping Democrats “find more votes.” What the Electoral Board – which includes Steve Hunt, one the most conservative guys in Fairfax County – are trying to do is to ensure the votes in Fairfax are accurately counted.

There is no “deadline for contesting provisional votes.” That’s not what we are talking about. The only deadline in the law is that all copies of IDs for those who were given Voter ID provisionals be provided to our office by noon on the Friday after the election. We have abided by that deadline, and any voter who voted provisionally because of an ID issue who failed to meet that deadline will not have their vote counted.

All other voters who voted provisionally are free to present any additional information – either in person or in writing – about why they think their provisional should be counted. We have been postponing our final votes on those provisionals to allow people – both Republicans AND Democrats – time to get here and present their case to the board if they so choose. So far, about 50 people have done so. And, I might note, most of those have been overseas service members or foreign service officers who were sent absentee ballots because they used a Federal Post Card Absentee ballot application that is good for two years and were unaware of that fact.

The decision to allow voters until Tuesday to come in and provide us with information was made unanimously by the Board. We are permitted, by law, to take up to seven days after the election (holiday’s like Veterans Day excepted) to complete our provisional ballot meeting and to certify the election. We are exercising that discretion and will certify our election when we are confident we’ve gotten it right.

Fundamentally, this election is close, and if someone wants to take the time to hike over to our Government Center and wants to tell us why their vote should count, we want to hear what they have to say.

Regardless of whether they do or not, we will vote up or down on whether to count every single provisional ballot and we will follow the law in making our decisions. The information helps the Board make a decision. That’s all.

It would be helpful to all of us during this time period if you would put your personal animosity to me aside and try to think about why two Republicans would be doing our best to get things right in Fairfax – perhaps because we care about democracy and making sure that everyone gets their vote counted that deserves to have it counted? That we’re trying to do the right thing? Maybe you’d like to win an election no matter what it takes to do so, but I have a conscience.

Bottom line: we are trying to do right by the voters in Fairfax County. That’s what I swore an oath to do.
- Steve Albertson
  
  Brian, I would not want to be in your shoes with so much scrutiny and media attention. In Stafford we had only 31 provisionals. Ended up counting 19, the vast majority of which were for the issue you noted (automatic mailing of absentee ballots to overseas addresses for military voters who had actually returned).
  
  Good luck!
  - Brian W. Schoeneman
    
    Thanks, Steve.
- Jeanine Martin
  
  At the risk of getting into a debate with Brian “I must have the last word” Schoeneman, you knew on Friday how many provisional you had. Why did you wait until Saturday afternoon to extend the deadline? You said that you would complete the count on Saturday. Why did you change your mind? http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/government-politics/absentee-provisional-ballots-could-tip-ag-s-race/article_9222e171-1598-5d01-9738-aeef0cfc7a60.html
  
  Yes, I am aware that both republicans and democrats submitted provisional ballots but we all know that the vast majority of those votes in Fairfax will be for democrats. You run the electoral board, you chose to extend the deadline. No one forced you to do that. It was your decision and your decision will benefit Mark Herring. Other than the obvious, an extension of your 15 minutes of minor fame, I will refrain from attempting to guess why you made that decision and encouraged the board to support it. It certainly won’t benefit the candidate you purport to support.
  - Brian W. Schoeneman
    
    We’ve known how many provisionals we’ve had since Wednesday morning. We didn’t plan on adjudicating any of the provisionals until Friday at noon at the absolute earliest, because that’s when the deadline for ID provisionals to get their IDs to us.
    
    There are two meetings of the Board on provisionals. There is the closed session for the purposes of hearing voters and discussing with staff reasons for individuals voting provisionally. Then there is the open session where we actually vote on provisionals, accept or reject them, open them and put them in the ballot boxes. We decided early on not to do the final open session until we’d had a chance to review every single provisional.
    
    In any normal election, we would have started the closed provisional meeting at noon on Friday, met with however many voters choose to present to us, then meet with the staff, review all of the other ballots and get information. Then we’d go on the record in an open meeting and vote. We had always intended to start the provisional meeting at 2 on Friday. But that was also the day that we had the issue with 8th District CAP, and staff time that should have been used in researching provisionals was spent working those issues. So we chose to only hear voters and then go back to the canvass of the 8th Precinct.
    
    We went back in to closed session to hear voters on Saturday morning, from 9:30 to 10, then we had our 8th District CAP meeting. Then we went back into closed session to hear more voters. Then we had our press conference. Then we went back into closed session to hear even more voters. Then we went into open session to announce our decision to continue meeting in closed session for voters until Tuesday.
    
    Voters who took the time to come in and meet with us about their provisionals absolutely deserved to be heard. I agreed with that. Steve Hunt agreed with that. So did Seth Stark, the Democrat.
    
    I have been giving projections about when we’d get done since Tuesday night – they are only projections and they are always subject to change. There are a lot of moving parts here.
    
    As for your “We know the vast majority of those [provisionals] will be for Democrats” – we don’t know that at all, and it’s inappropriate to make that kind of speculation so categorical. The provisionals in Loudoun – Herring’s home county – broke Obenshain. Nobody expected that.
    
    Again, for the last time: We did not extend any deadlines. There are only two deadlines in regards to provisionals in the law – the noon Friday deadline for getting IDs in for ID provisionals, and the 7 days to get all provisionals done. We abided by the first and will abide by the second.
    
    Your petty jealousies and personal animosity are so transparent I’m surprised you are willing to even put them in writing, Jeanine. Everyone who reads this is thinking the same things. As for the coverage, I don’t want this 15 minutes of fame – I would have been much happier if this election went by with no problems.
    
    I will also state this categorically so that you and anybody else on either side of the aisle who has any question knows where I stand: It is not my role or my place to concern myself with which candidate or which side wins this election. My job is to make sure the election is fair, accurate and that every vote that should be counted gets counted. My oath of office isn’t to my political party, it’s to my county and the voters in my county.
    
    The right to vote is fundamental and protecting it is important to me, more important than who wins. It’s sad that you don’t agree.
Bruce Hedrick

First time on this blog, and last time for a long while after hearing Jeanine Martin’s petty partisan bickering. Jeanine Martin is the type of person that I completely hate in politics… one who thins everything has to be “R” or “D”, and that anything “D” is bad.

Schoeneman has my highest respect as a public official who is doing everything is his power to make sure every vote is counted.
- Jeanine Martin
  
  Bruce, aren’t you usually hanging out with Ben Tribbett? Under the circumstances I completely understand why you would object to my post.
  - Bruce Hedrick
    
    Just like everything else you usually say, you’re wrong on that statement too. And not surprisingly, you’re also wrong in a partisan way. I’m an independent. I vote on the person and the issues, not a little letter at the end of their name. Your little diatribe up there shows your true colors as you are part of the problem that has paralyzed the political process. That’s the reason that I object to your post and to your asinine partisanship.
    - Bruce Hedrick
      
      Gosh, that was a fun experiment with fast clicking the up and down vote buttons. 😀
Jeanine Martin

I have two sources who have been present during the Fairfax Fiasco and I stand by everything that I have posted.
- Bruce Hedrick
  
  Nobody believes a partisan hack on either side of the aisle. Go away.
  - Jeanine Martin
    
    Go Away? Where? This is my blog you idiot.
    - Bruce Hedrick
      
      Way too many answers for that question. 😀
- Brian W. Schoeneman
  
  You have a tendency to stand by reports that are wrong. That doesn’t make them right, that just means you’re standing by being wrong.
  - Steve Albertson
    
    Brian, I totally get why you’d want to extend the time to consider provisionals when you have potentially hundreds of people showing up to try to vindicate their rights. You’re right to not shut the door on that because of some arbitrary deadline…if citizens are taking the time to show up and talk to you, you should take the time to let them. Voting rights are too important not to.
    
    How did that happen, though? Ordinarily only a relative handful of people show up to argue their provisional ballot should be accepted. Here, though, it seems like the parties have lists of the provisional voters and that they’re turning out “their” voters for the provisional canvass in relatively large numbers. Is that right?
    - Brian W. Schoeneman
      
      Under the law, the party observers in the closed session are permitted to review the provisional ballot log and may take notes. They are permitted to see everything about a voter except social security numbers and the reason why the individual voted provisionally. From the SBE’s guidance: “”During the provisional ballot meeting, authorized representatives are permitted to see and hear the process, to inspect the provisional ballot log and take notes from the list, including the names, phone numbers, date of birth, and addresses of individuals who have voted provisionally.”
      
      As an administrative convenience to the parties, we provide to the parties a spreadsheet with all of the non-confidential information. SBE specifically bars us from providing photocopies of the log to the parties, so we don’t do that.
      
      In other jurisdictions, it’s completely possible for the observers to write down all of the information for the couple dozen provisionals they have. For us, it would take hours to give them the chance to go through all the logs and write all the info down. Rather than waste everyone’s time, we provide the spreadsheet and make sure both parties have a copy. We understand that Loudoun, Arlington, Alexandria, Richmond a number of other localities do the same thing we do.
      
      To be clear, again, we do NOT provide copies of the provisional ballot log, nor do we permit any confidential information to be released. SBE considers the following to be non-confidential information: “Information
      not deemed confidential includes the voter’s name, date of birth, phone number, and address.”
      
      Hope that clears it up.
      - Steve Albertson
        
        It does. Thanks. I was just wondering why we were seeing all this fuss in Fairfax but not in other places (though I confess I don’t know if Loudoun, Arlington, Richmond, et al are in similar situations). I get it now.
        
        And I also now understand why we in Stafford were getting so much grief from the party reps…I didn’t understand why they expected to receive a list in advance, as we only let them see the redacted copy of a precinct’s provisional ballot log during the provisional ballot meeting we had on Friday (i.e., in real time). So, they have the voter’s information in the event they want to challenge any of our “no” votes in court, but did not have the info to “turn out” the voters for the provisional ballot meeting.
      - Brian W. Schoeneman
        
        The law is silent and SBE hasn’t told us we can’t provide our spreadsheet before the provisional ballot meeting, so we have a practice (and the Board approved it weeks before the election) to give the party’s 24 hours from the time we send them their spreadsheet to contact voters if they wish. We all agreed to give them that time.
        
        As an aside, I requested this same information from the Electoral Board last year in the presidential election when I was the General Counsel for the Fairfax County Republican Committee and not on the Board. Both parties want to get a chance to get their voters to present info if possible.
      - Jeanine Martin
        
        The law doesn’t seem silent to me. It says that during the meeting to consider provisional ballots party representatives may be present and see the logs. It doesn’t say that party reps can see those logs 24 hours prior to the meeting to consider provisional votes. I understand that you three in Fairfax decided to do it that way, but that is not how the law reads.
      - Brian W. Schoeneman
        
        No one, not even me, has seen the logs. The parties have seen a speadsheet with names. That is not the same thing as the official “Provisional Ballot Log.”
      - Jeanine Martin
        
        Ok. Where does the law say you can give those names to the parties prior to the provisional meeting? It doesn’t.
      - Heather Stefl
        
        Thank you Brian for all you do.
      - Jeanine Martin
        
        Where does the law state that the parties can see the spreadsheet 24 hours prior to the closed meeting? I’ve missed that part in the law.
Brian W. Schoeneman

Also, for the record, the motion that I made that passed 2-0 with 1 abstention was on disagreeing with the SBE policy.

The motion I made to seek an AG opinion on this issue was passed 3-0.

The motion I made to allow voters to continue presenting information to us until Tuesday was passed 3-0.

Again, Jeanine, your facts are wrong. Please stop confusing things in your misguided efforts to smear me. And no matter how steadfastly you stand by “your sources” they are wrong.
- Jeanine Martin
  
  Brian, you need no help from me. You’re doing a fine job all on your own.
Alexis Rose Bank

The biggest news here is that Brian has finally found a principle he’s willing to go to the mat for.
mjritter

Brian should be commended, not criticized. One of the great fundamentals of our nation is voting. Having been the first 17 y/o to register in VA many many years ago, I take the right to vote seriously. It’s not a republican right or a democrat right but an American right. Jeanine seems to miss that fact. Brian might be a republican appointee, but he works for ALL Virginian’s. It’s his job to get it right. It is important to get it right. Over 600,000 of our bravest and finest are buried in Arlingron National who served to protect our right to vote. On this Veterans Day we should remember that. All legitimate votes should count and we should do all we can to make it as easy to vote as we can.. Let’s not be like North Carolina..

Obenshain Lead Cut to 28 votes, Brian Schoeneman Extends Provisional Ballot Deadline in Fairfax

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