When Glenn Youngkin became governor of Virginia, many Democrats in appointed jobs were replaced by Republicans, and the state’s constitution dictates that two of the three people on local boards of election must come from the governor’s party. That change has not gone smoothly in some places, most notably Buckingham County in Central Virginia.
Maggie Snoddy is a devoted Democrat – vice chair of the party in Buckingham County. She claims her latest crusade is not a Republican or Democratic cause. Instead, she says, it's about good governance.
Snoddy had worked at the polls for years without incident, but in November of 2022 that changed as citizens with unfounded fears of voter fraud began verbally attacking officials.
“For the first time in 30-some years we had officers of election who were harassed and intimidated by some of the Republican observers, and they were ready to resign then,” she recalls.
Also quitting, all four people who worked at the registrar’s office – an experienced team charged with getting people registered and running elections. County Supervisor and Democrat Jordan Miles was appalled by what came next. It seemed to him the electoral board – which chooses the registrar -- was ignoring state law, and the Republican party was spreading misinformation.
“One member held an emergency meeting by herself and appointed herself chairman of the electoral board and then, again without a quorum, hired the registrar, Mr. Gutierrez. There was a press release being pedaled by the chair of the local Republican Party that 21% of all the mail-in ballots in the November 2022 election came from voters who were registered outside of Buckingham County.”
That claim was based on the fact that some residents of Buckingham County have postal addresses in Scottsville, Farmville and other communities.
“This is nothing new," he explains. "Because we’re a very large county we’re supported by post offices in other localities.”
Miles decided to investigate – asking for some documents under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. The new registrar, Luis Gutierrez, claimed he had no idea where to find most of those documents and called the request a “time waster.”
“Thank you for burying me in paperwork,” he wrote. “I am so glad that my wife and I attend daily mass at 7:15 every morning, because I do not know if I could deal with all of this were it not for receiving daily holy communion.”
He sent Miles a few of the documents along with a bill for more than $700, including a $200 convenience fee which is not allowed by state law and suggested Miles get a job at Walmart to pay for the registrar’s time.
“Interestingly enough," Miles adds, "he asked me to make the check payable to him, not the office of the elections.”
After less than a month on the job, Gutierrez was fired, and the electoral board has been a revolving door with four people quitting. Fortunately, Buckingham does not have primaries this spring, so there’s time to get ready for the next election, but Maggie Snoddy is worried.
“Early voting starts in September, and all the officers of election need to go through training. Who’s going to do that training?”
And Jordan Miles doesn’t see how a fair election is even possible.
“Not at this point – no. These people have a lot to learn if they’ve never run an election or worked in the election space. People have died and fought to see that our liberties – which include open elections – are stable for everybody!”
He’s now suing to get the documents he requested from the registrar and will be in court on June 6th. We reached out to a number of Republican officials in Richmond and Buckingham County. None would comment on the situation there. The state’s Democratic party chair sent a letter to her Republican counterpart and to Glenn Youngkin, asking them to denounce remarks by the former registrar in Buckingham. He referred to Democrats as the EIE Network – Experts in Evil. Susan Swecker said such language is dangerous and urged the governor and the GOP to condemn it.
