Suit to void Lynchburg election result seeks an extraordinary remedy, but the legal process is working the way it should

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are 2,000 to get us started today.

We’ve written lots about how divided Lynchburg’s city council is, but sometimes words aren’t enough to do justice. However, this photo by Cardinal’s Matt Busse may do a better job of explaining the tensions better than anything I’ve ever written. Last week, two council members — Marty Misjuns and Jeff Helgeson — called a special meeting of the council to discuss the legal challenge to Vice Mayor Chris Faraldi’s victory in the Republican primary results in Ward IV. When a quorum didn’t materialize, they launched into a news conference. Mayor Stephanie Reed tried to point out that, historically, Lynchburg’s city council chambers hasn’t been used for partisan news conferences. Rather, it’s been reserved for official city pronouncements. (Think of how presidents don’t hold news conferences in the Oval Office; that’s only for national addresses of some gravitas.) Here’s the mayor on the phone trying to get someone to remind Misjuns and Helgson of all that. Oh, and keep in mind, all these are Republicans:

Now here’s another photo, a screenshot of the video feed from Tuesday’s special meeting of Lynchburg City Council. That’s city attorney Matt Freedman accusing Helgeson and Misjuns of “shameful” behavior by suggesting that he’s aiding Faraldi in that election challenge. Freedman said the two could have asked for a closed session meeting to discuss the lawsuit. “Instead, they chose to hold a press conference and hold a special meeting in hopes of creating a public spectacle to attack me and other council members,” Freedman said. “This is unfortunate and it’s shameful.”

I’ve followed Virginia politics for a long time, and I’ve never seen a local government as dysfunctional as the one currently in Lynchburg. There are lots that are politically divided — the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors is almost always evenly split between Democrats from around Blacksburg and Republicans elsewhere — but I’ve never seen the vitriol that’s present in Lynchburg, which is entirely between Republicans. All parties have factions and some degree of internal tensions, but in Lynchburg there’s open political warfare between the hardliners (Helgeson and Misjuns) and the more temperate Republicans on the council. In a recent interview on WLNI-FM , Mayor Stephanie Reed accused Helgeson and Misjuns of being bullies intent on “terrorizing” her and others on council — and said that Helgeson, in particular, is a sore loser because she was elected mayor instead of him. At Tuesday’s meeting, Helgeson accused Reed of trying to stifle free speech. This back-and-forth isn’t confined to council members, either. At Tuesday’s meeting, one Lynchburg resident who addressed the council during the public comment period targeted Misjuns, whom the speaker accused of being “obsessed” with transgender people and called on the council to expel him; Misjuns complained that Reed didn’t cut off the speaker when the resident veered away from commenting on official city matters to things that Misjuns posts on Facebook.

None of this is a good look for Lynchburg, or for Republicans. I was interviewed Wednesday on WLNI’s “Morningline” program and was asked, in my capacity as a longtime political observer, what would bring an end to this infighting. My answer: Voters will ultimately have their say; it just takes a while for election cycles to come around and provide some clarity. Actually, voters have had their say in one race: Helgeson and Misjuns recruited a candidate to challenge Faraldi for the Republican nomination, and that candidate lost. Narrowly, but still a loss that falls outside the margin Virginia allows for a recount.

It’s the lawsuit that the losing candidate, Peter Alexander, has filed to void those election results that has stirred up the latest dispute in Lynchburg. Alexander’s lawsuit alleges that 125 absentee ballots might not have been counted, and, with a 33-vote margin in Faraldi’s favor, those allegedly uncounted votes may have made the difference. Helgeson and Misjuns have raised the question about whether the city attorney is helping Faraldi, by citing an email the attorney sent to council members about the lawsuit. Meanwhile, I’ve seen those on the left (and yes, there are definitely liberals in Lynchburg) wonder if Alexander’s lawsuit is really some test case by the Donald Trump campaign to find a way to overturn election results.

Taken together, all this paints a dark and disturbing picture that people well beyond Lynchburg should care about. If Alexander’s suit is to be believed, the electoral board can’t be trusted to count the votes. If Helgeson and Misjuns are to be believed, city government is trying to interfere in election results to favor a particular candidate. If those commenters on Facebook are to be believed, this is a trial run to overthrow democracy.

My advice: Let’s just chill. Go take a long walk on the River Bluff and watch the James River roll by. Get some ice cream from MayLynn’s Creamery (I particularly recommend their Death by Chocolate). Go see bluesman Tab Benoit at the Academy Center of the Arts. Go take in a Lynchburg Hillcats baseball game. Do whatever it takes to get a deep breath and clear your head. I’m not convinced that things here are as bad as some might think. Oh, the turmoil on the Lynchburg City Council is, but allow me to offer some calming perspective about the election challenge.

Yes, Alexander seeks an extraordinary remedy here — to void election results. This is such a rarely used provision in Virginia law that the only similar example anyone has ever been able to cite comes from 1945, when a judge threw out tainted election results from Wise County. (I wrote in more detail about this case in Wednesday’s column .) I’ve heard mention of a mayor’s election in one small town where the loser challenged the results on the grounds that the winner didn’t live within town limits, but that’s a different sort of complaint than saying the electoral board didn’t count all the votes. As the astronomer Carl Sagan once said about claims of extraterrestrial life, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof — so the bar for throwing out an election should be high.

Ultimately, I put my faith here in Virginia’s judicial system to sort all this out, and would urge others to do the same.

Electoral Board chair David Levy told the Lynchburg City Council that all the votes were counted, implying that Alexander simply misunderstood the forms that detail how absentee ballots are handled. That seems perfectly plausible to me and, while I’m not inclined to gamble, if I were betting, I’d bet this is what happened.

On the other hand, the allegation that not all votes were counted is a serious one that should concern everybody. If one party really believes that not all the votes were counted, and has some evidence to point to, I’d argue they have a duty to file a challenge. As a journalist, I’m in the business of finding things out, so I look at this election challenge as a good opportunity to do just that. If, in fact, there’s been some horrendous mistake and not all the votes were counted, we need to know. On the other hand, if this is just some misunderstanding, then this case provides an opportunity to show that our elections are well-run. (That’s also why I like recounts: They provide an opportunity to show voters how accurate election results are. And if the result ever turns out differently, well, we need to know that.)

I’d advise tuning out a lot of the city council chatter about this case. As avowed foes of Faraldi, Helgeson and Misjuns have political motives to cause as big a commotion as possible to question the election results and anything else dealing with it. Unfortunately, even if they were right, their hostility to Faraldi means they are not the most credible messengers. Yes, I’d love to know what’s in the email that the city attorney sent to council members. But there’s no evidence that city government has assisted Faraldi in any way — and lots of ways to imagine that the city has more than a passing interest in whether the electoral board did its job correctly. (Electoral boards are in an odd legal position; they get some local funding, but some state funding.) Helgeson insists that this is a suit between two “private parties.” That’s not quite so. State law does set up the legal style here as Alexander v. Faraldi (recounts are styled the same way), but the ultimate question is one of very public concern: Did a government agency (the electoral board) get the results right? Ultimately, though, this isn’t a matter that the council will ever have to decide; the courts will. Frankly, given the state of things on the Lynchburg City Council, that should be reassuring.

What I see from afar is a system that’s working exactly the way it’s supposed to — a challenge has been filed, and the courts are now proceeding to handle that. We’ll know soon enough. Meanwhile, the Hillcats are home this weekend. Go enjoy. There’ll be plenty to worry about later.

But wait, there’s more!

The key ward in Lynchburg’s city council races this fall will be Ward I, a swing ward where the incumbent is retiring. Republicans have nominated Jacqueline Timmer, Democrats have picked Randy Smith. However, an independent has qualified for the ballot and, this week, Cameron Howe rolled out her campaign. I’ll take a look at what that potentially means in this week’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter.

Also coming this week:

• Faraldi campaign sells lawsuit-themed merch.
• The post-political career of former state Sen. Charles Hawkins, R-Pittsylvania County.
• A missed opportunity for Senate Republican candidate Hung Cao.
• Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, brings congressional delegation to Tazewell County to talk energy and the environment.

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