Nelson Election Team Has Voters’ Backs
Democracy has deep roots in Virginia. In fact, the first English parliamentary body outside the British Isles was chartered in 1619 in Virginia-the House of Burgesses, forerunner of today's House of Delegates. Two Burgesses were elected from each County and one from each chartered City to enact laws and approve taxes for the colonial government in Williamsburg.
Virginia had nearly 150 years of experience in self-government before King George III sought to limit the colonists' liberties. And it wasn’t by accident that Virginia was home to luminaries such as Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Mason, and many others who had served as the elected representatives of their fellow Virginians before becoming leaders of a new nation.
Virginia also pioneered time-proven procedures for elections and voting during the early decades of the Republic. With the Constitution of 1850, Virginia moved away from owning property as the primary qualification for voting to qualifications based upon registration in one's primary place of residence. Sheriffs appointed by each county court ran each colonial election. They served as the equivalent of a modern electoral board, and ensured that voters were qualified before their vote was recorded.
Later, Virginia authorized appointment of General Registrars in each County and chartered City to oversee the registration process. After the Civil War, Virginia introduced the secret ballot and created Electoral Boards to supervise the conduct of elections.
So, for more than a century, Electoral Boards and their General Registrars have shared responsibility for ensuring the integrity of the voter registration process and the conduct of free and fair elections.
In keeping with traditions going back to colonial days when sheriffs conducted elections, assisted by justices of the peace, present-day Electoral Boards and General Registrars are carefully kept separate constitutionally from the elected officers of state and local governments whose elections they oversee.
Today, 133 local Electoral Boards and General Registrars manage all elections in Virginia. Each Electoral Board is appointed by the Circuit Court to represent the two major political parties serving their jurisdiction to ensure elections are conducted in a fair and transparent manner.
Nelson County
In Nelson County, the Nelson County Democratic Committee and the Nelson Republican Committee nominate their members to the 24th Circuit Court. The party of the Governor selects two of the three appointments. The majority of the judges then vote to appoint the party nominee to the Electoral Board. Each Electoral Board member takes and signs an oath of office required by the Constitution. The 3-person Electoral Board serve staggered three-year terms.
While Electoral Board members are tasked with administering elections in fair and nonpartisan ways, they are appointed from a political party. They are typically politically active and not prohibited from acting as such in their private lives or in comments to the press. However, board members may not be paid campaign workers, political party committee chairs, elected officials, or government employees.
The Electoral Board is a true bi-partisan body - by law, the Chairman and Secretary must be members of opposing political parties. Yet above all, the Board works for the impartiality and integrity of the electoral process.
The Electoral Board appoints a Director of Elections/General Registrar to a 4-year term.
The Electoral Board delegates day-to-day election management to the Director of Elections/General Registrar. Elections require intensive planning and preparation. The General Registrar, serving as the Director of Elections, is responsible for voter registration, absentee voting, campaign finance compliance, and public information. They must identify suitable polling places; acquire and test voting and other equipment; recruit and train Officers of Election; and obtain technical support and financial resources. They serve the County as the expert on election law and procedures, ballot formulation and absentee ballot mailing compliance. Further, they are tasked with Election Night Reporting and Actual Voter Turnout reporting.
It’s the duty of the Nelson County Electoral Board to ensure that elections comply with the law. They conduct public meetings throughout the year; review the office’s annual budget; decide — with the registrar’s recommendation — the number of ballots that should be printed; approve equipment purchases; may help train election officials and communicate with the public.
The Electoral Board also verifies election vote totals. Nelson’s Electoral Board begins the canvass on the morning after the election and reviews all of the output from the machines. We read the tapes and go over them, and we make sure that they match what was called in the previous night.
For the 2020 November Election, that process won’t be completed until noon Friday, Nov. 6 — the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots.
The board then forwards the result to the State Board of Elections.
Elections are complex, major undertakings that require careful planning, advance preparation, and smooth execution on Election Day. Successful elections are not just the work of one or two people, but the product of many people working together as a team.
Trained Officers of Election are responsible for managing all activities on Election Day at our County’s 10 polling places. These officers must be registered voters of the Commonwealth of Virginia who are not elected officials or deputies of such officials and who take an Oath of Office pledging to serve impartially. Each Officer puts in a 14-16 hour day on Election Day, in addition to many hours of pre-election training mandated by law. The pay is small. Many Election Officers serve their fellow citizens from a sense of duty, civic pride, and a firm belief in the democratic process.
Additionally, Nelson County staff play a valuable, and in some cases critical, role in supporting election operations. Without the support of virtually all the departments in the County, elections could not take place.
Nelson County elections are fair, honest, transparent, and run smoothly thanks to the dedication of our General Registrar and staff, the Officers of Election, the professionalism of County staff and their departments, and to the public-spirited nature of the citizens themselves.
We hope to continue to prove ourselves worthy stewards of the Commonwealth's proud tradition of nearly four centuries of orderly democratic processes.
Nelson County Electoral Board
Chairman Don Bailey (R) dhbailey50@gmail.com
Vice Chairman Linda Hughes (D) Linda.hughes711@gmail.com
Secretary Susan Greene (D)
Nelson County’s General Registrar/Director of Elections
Jacqueline Britt
Resources: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica; Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia; Virginia Department of Elections;
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/government/electoralboards.html; Photo: Humanities- Picturing America, George Caleb Bingham: The County Election, c.1852