Virginia State Capitol. (Ned Oliver / Virginia Mercury)
A self-proclaimed “progressive populist” who has run three times as a Green or independent candidate for the General Assembly, Jeff Staples knows he probably wouldn’t win even if state officials put him on the ballot.
But he remains baffled why the State Board of Elections refused to do so despite the paperwork error preventing him from running against Del. Barry Knight, R-Virginia Beach, wasn’t his fault.
“I’m not a big gamer,” said Staples, a 59-year-old Chesapeake resident who works in auto repair. “If I belong to a party, then they would be on it all. But since I’m a reformist type, they don’t bite. “
Jeff Staples, a frequent candidate for the General Assembly, describes himself as a “progressive populist” and a “reformist type”. (Courtesy photo by Jeff Staples)
The missing financial disclosure form that prevented Staples from qualifying for the election was filed by the Election Department on June 8. On the morning of June 2, the first day the filing window was open, Staples emailed Chesapeake Registrar Mary Lynn Pinkerman saying his form was ready for delivery.
“Do I have to send a copy to Richmond, too?” He asked, referring to the state electoral authority.
“No, it just comes here,” Pinkerman replied.
That was wrong, as Pinkerman now admits. In an interview, Pinkerman said she was mistakenly looking for information for local candidates.
“I feel absolutely terrible. It made me so sick that my human error cost this man his place on the ballot, ”Pinkerman said. “It could have been corrected so easily in my head.”
Election officials publish bulletins explaining candidate registration rules and deadlines, and these instructions are readily available on the state’s election website.
Staples said he knew the COVID-19 pandemic had forced changes to the electoral process and he assumed filing the form on-site rather than in Richmond would be one of them.
“She is an election officer. You should know. So I brought it to her, ”he said.
Staples sent the email exchange to state officials ahead of a June 30 session at which the electoral committee heard a multitude of appeals related to paperwork. Although the board voted to qualify several party-backed candidates despite receiving belated nomination forms from local party officials, the meeting ended with no discussion and no votes on the Staples case and a handful of others.
In an interview, election committee chairman Bob Brink said the board is bound by state laws that don’t give them much flexibility to deal with spelling mistakes on a case-by-case basis.
“If the board grants an extension to a candidate who has not submitted these forms, the board must grant it to all federal and community candidates,” Brink said.
The state law gives the electoral committee the power to extend the submission deadlines for some forms by 10 days. However, it does require the board to notify any candidate with missing or late documentation. Because of this, the board has no power to make exceptions only for candidates who may have more valid excuses than others.
That year, Brink stated that candidates and parties should no longer count on the board of directors routinely approving extensions.
“Candidates should consult the relevant department bulletin if they have any questions,” said Brink, summarizing the message he had already tried to send.
In the past, board members have suggested that the deadlines no longer make sense when extensions are routinely granted, and that being too lenient for candidates who manage to obey the rules is unfair. Many who work in state politics feel that the paperwork for the election campaign is a fundamental test of competence that pales in comparison to the logistical demands of a fast-moving legislative period.
But would-be candidates who have been on the wrong end of the board’s no-exception policy argue that it means elections can be effectively canceled for technical reasons, leaving voters with less choice or no competition at all. Although the Democrats passed a number of bills to make voting easier, less attention has been paid to issues of access to ballot papers, which often involve outside candidates who have no institutional support.
When Richmond City Councilor Michael Jones got involved in a possible Democratic primary against Del. Failed to qualify for the election, Betsy Carr said D-Richmond had also accidentally filed paperwork with his local registrar and found out too late that it should go to the state office. There were two other democratic hopes also disqualified before the main season.
Staples, who was involved with the Sierra Club, says his main topics are environmental protection and the politics of making big money.
“I like the little guy getting on, and I like when the Virginia I grew up in stays clean, useful, and healthy, all that good stuff,” Staples said.
He ran against Knight in 2015 and received nearly 30 percent of the vote while spending just a few thousand dollars. He ran again for the House of Representatives in 2017. He challenged Senator Lionell Spruill Sr., D-Chesapeake, in 2019 and received about 19.6 percent of the vote.
He says he’s been running outside of the two-party system, in part just to try to “influence some of the behaviors of the people I’m up against.”
As of now, he won’t have an opportunity to do so in 2021, but he says he’s exploring the possibility of a legal challenge. In his letter to the electoral committee, Staples praised Pinkerman for doing “a masterful job” as a Chesapeake registrar. But he said he didn’t even know the state had discovered a problem with his papers until he heard about it from a reporter for his local newspaper, the Princess Anne Independent News.
“I think they really think they don’t need to communicate with the people they serve,” said Staples. “But I think we have to change that.”