A coalition of conservative Hanover County residents is concerned that the county is not properly prepared to securely handle November’s elections.
The Hanover County Republican Committee addressed the county’s board of supervisors during its Wednesday meeting, presenting a resolution urging the board to advocate that Virginia “immediately discontinue” any use of machines to count votes in favor of counting every paper ballot by hand.
Jack Dyer, chairman of the committee, described the measure as integral to voters who've lost trust and confidence in Virginia’s voting system
“The most precious right that we have as a citizen is our right to vote for [our] representation,” Dyer told the board. “When we walk to a poll, that voter should be able to feel confident that the vote is going to count, and we don't have that anymore.”
Dyer also said recent changes to Virginia’s voting laws — such as expanded absentee voting and removal of mandatory statewide audits after a presidential election — have suppressed voter turnout in the county.
However, the sentiments of Dyer’s coalition don’t totally align with national trends of voters whose confidence in the electoral process has shifted over the past several years.
The Pew Research Center — a nonpartisan think tank that conducts public opinion polling and research on a variety of social and political issues — has measured voter trust in the electoral process during the last three federal election cycles, including 2024.
The overall percentage of respondents who believed the upcoming election would be administered at least “somewhat well” has remained fairly consistent across 2020, 2022 and 2024 — between 59% and 64% each time — but the partisan divide has taken a 180-degree turn.
Three-quarters of Republicans said they believed the 2020 election would be conducted well, compared to less than half of Democrats; in both 2022 and 2024, Democrats were far more likely to be confident in the election administration process.
Teresa Smithson, Hanover’s general registrar, told VPM News it’s hard to pinpoint where the mistrust stems from — and even harder to dissuade voters from their disbelief in the county’s election processes.
“We've spent the last four years trying to educate folks about our voting equipment, our checks and balances and dispel some of the disinformation that's being thrown out there,” Smithson said. “Our officers of elections work very hard to ensure we run equal and fair elections.”
Smithson said shifting from paper-ballot counting machines to hand-counting wouldn't be impossible, but would be impractical for this election.
Smithson pointed to the results of Virginia’s 5th District Republican primary between incumbent U.S. Rep. Bob Good and state Sen. John McGuire, in which the hand-counted recount produced a nearly identical result to what was recorded by the electronic ballot-counting machines.
She also referenced an executive order issued by Gov. Glenn Youngkin in early August, which laid out strict procedures for securing ballots and ensuring the integrity of ballot-counting machines.
“Everything we do is transparent,” Smithson said. “You know what I know, and we’re going to do everything possible to support what the Department of Elections asks of us.”
