Electoral Board Meeting   10/15/2026

And I note the presence of a court

Subsequently to Bratton's document, it was published in the midst of the

The reason there are two similar documents is there was great concern about or enforce a policy.

Policy might do in any way shape or form, certainly had no intent to do so, was not ever known.

Also,

about how much we are with in terms of things.

These all created without any discussion with the board and this is the first time for us to discuss what's in it.

and the documents that are here, we have very little Inovo material.

Okay, I need to add

Can you all hear me?

Yes.

The speakerphone.

I can hear that Sherry and the board, but the board is in and out, says Liz.

I've changed the microphone.

Is that any better?

much better thank you unfortunately that's the microphone on my computer so that means when Andrea speaks you'll never hear her you might or might not speak Jim here Jim and uh Valerie wow so she's trying to fly under the radar should we come and get behind your laptop when we want to say I can I can hear I can hear Jim I can hear

Well, I am sorry for the audio difficulties.

I will report this to IT and let them work on it.

So hopefully it'll be addressed before our next regular meeting.

But at this stage, I think we need to soldier on.

Other public comments?

Quick question.

I've seen the document, the policies document, but then I look at the

Did you print it a few days ago?

No, no.

There are different things.

A policy is a policy.

So the content of the two documents are the same, but there's a difference in language.

Well, there are a few other substantive differences in the policy.

It says that if the various campaigns can't agree on who's going to go where, then they have to ask the registrar to assign them to places.

And this doesn't have that anymore.

This simply says, okay, the space is divided evenly and you take turns rotating through the spaces every day.

So what happens next if there's disagreement is baked into the guidance.

If you can simply agree, then you don't need to do any of that.

Mr. Caron?

I was actually on the line today and I did not see that the guidance part was online available.

So my overall concern, I think I understand that you want to

I'm looking online and it's there.

I haven't touched it for a couple of days.

I've seen a lot of inconsistencies and applications of what the law is and isn't and I think there are a lot of people that don't understand what is appropriate and not appropriate or what the law says about the 40-foot perimeter but I will say this that I'm concerned about the electoral board trying to create

regulations and policies that perhaps they don't have the authority to do, and then to put on our registrar or to extend those things that perhaps Virginia Code doesn't provide for.

I also say I'm very concerned about people who aren't in the act of voting.

I've witnessed this numerous times, marching into the early voting area to file a complaint.

I personally think that that is a negative set of interactions that happens in a voting area.

And I would like to see that there's some guidance or instruction that if people have complaints about what's going on either within the 40 foot or beyond, that they go directly to the registrar's office separately to file it and get out of the voting area.

I've seen many people congregating immediately outside the doors, groups of people, and election officers don't stop it, but sometimes they stop it and they've made some threats to people.

I'd like to see that addressed in a way that, you know, isn't, it is more respectful, but I have seen election officers

congregating outside the dorms with people who aren't voting and aren't working.

So there's been an inconsistency of applying the law and of educating people about what the law is.

And I think those things can be addressed in a really great way.

Could it be that it's just a simple no loitering or congregating sign, among other things, because the law has a lot of things that you can't do within 40 feet.

And so with regard to if people knew that, but I think a lot of people that I saw congregating there knew what it was.

They were just not approached that they shouldn't be there as opposed to other people who were.

So there's been a real inconsistency of that by election officials.

And as my other point that I feel very strongly about, even though it go into detail,

Point over the paragraphs of your draft policy, but where my concerns are to be clear.

But I'm just not sure that you don't have the authority to do a track.

I don't think you want to be in the position of establishing regulations or policies that you may not have authority to do.

I understand you're wanting to protect free speech and that type of thing.

You also have to be concerned with fire code, ingress,

Egress, ingress, that type of thing.

May I suggest that we be a little bit more formal in our recognition of speakers, right?

So I'm just wondering if we can just

asks people, I understand that this is Mary Ann Gustafson, and thank you very much for your remarks.

Sure.

And what would you like?

Have them identify themselves?

OK.

Yes, who would like to be the clockkeeper?

The reason I ask is other boards and committees sometimes ask people to identify what magisterial district they're from, which supervisor to forward your complaint to.

Okay.

All right.

I just didn't realize we'd moved into that portion of the meeting officially, and I'm grateful to Ms. Gustafson for her remarks, which I think were very informative.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Okay, is your hand up?

I would concur with what the former speaker said.

I worry that by putting yourself in jeopardy,

by overstepping bounds that are outlined in code.

As far as the 40 foot, and as I said at the last meeting, you have jurisdiction to the 40 feet.

The space beyond that is courtesy to the campaigns.

What they do or don't do really

short of a 300 foot prohibition on a loudspeaker.

The types of work they do is their business as long as they're not infringing on the voters and breaking the law and impeding them anywhere.

You can't impede a voter no matter where you are.

But I think that to the point that was made that may not be in your guidance,

I think there needs to be some carefully worded instruction, since the registrar is in charge of in-person absentee, on what the, they would call the officers, registrars, assistants, associates, whatever, can and cannot do.

And civil discourse, screaming at people, is inappropriate.

And that's taking place.

I mean, you can't have officers at the police

May I ask you a clarifying question for Bill?

So is it your understanding that some officers of election have raised their voices with campaigners

or voters.

Thank you.

That's the comment.

I think that needs to be, I'm sorry that I think it needs to be understood, but I think it needs to be explained to the people who are working in debt.

You certainly wouldn't do that in a precinct or a polling place on election day.

So you're saying that there are election officials that have been screaming at people outside the door within the 40-foot line?

Within the 40-foot line and possibly even it's kind of hard if you're screaming for the voice not to care.

So I think

What I understand

If I could just boil down what maybe the two of you have said, is that right?

I mean, I think your comments were in concurrence, right?

So I think that the two things that you're driving at here is that you think that the board may be straying outside of its statutory authority in establishing a policy or even suggestions about behavior, yeah?

I'm not saying you are.

Right, of course.

Yes, very much so.

OK, so that's issue number one.

and thank you.

Well, a little bit, yeah, no, of course, absolutely.

Thank you.

I think your three minutes may be up to my colleague's point about watching the time.

So you're going to go on anyway, even though I've said you're out of order.

I think the main thing that we were concerned about was the area, the campaigning area.

That has been established as the campaigning area by facilities management, not by us.

But facilities management has further said, well, that area for campaigners, what happens in that area should be up to the electoral board.

So other things to me right now are strange.

The issue is that campaigning area.

And what should happen in that?

It's an area for campaigners, their tents, their signs.

It is not an area for vehicles to be parked.

I think that

To some degree, we should limit our guidance here to discussing that area.

And my thinking is that our guidance or policy should be that that area should not be a place that any vehicles park, period.

And the only people and campaigners can be there right now.

We have the blue pen and we have the red pen.

We have two and a half,

parking spaces in between.

Or are we also talking about just people who have an opinion?

I suppose that could be part of it, yeah.

Well, I think we also had input at the last meeting that there was a vehicle that was parked there that had some placards on it, you know, related to the election in some manner.

And because that vehicle was there,

Parking there is all about safety.

It's not about message.

Right.

So I do feel like it also invites, not only is it a little bit of a safety matter with respect to the campaign tents, but also it invites other members of the public to think, oh, well, here's an open parking spot.

It's very close to the entrance.

That is why the orange cones have been put up there.

The orange cones, I believe, were supplied by facilities management.

but the Orange Cones facilities management is not going to come out at eight o'clock in the morning to put up some cones there so it has been up to the election officials that arrive early to put those cones out there and they have been doing that and at least in the last several days that I have been here the cones have been effective and

There has been an occasion of someone from the campaign tent moving one of the cones out of the place that it was.

I moved it back to where it was supposed to be because of what the cones are for.

Otherwise, I think that has been, no one has run over the cones or anything like that.

When I stop and I'm here virtually every day, I stop at both tents.

I ask them if everything is all right, going OK. And I get nothing but everything is fine.

I have not gotten any complaints about screaming or anything like that.

Please.

This afternoon, Mr. Mallory, who

participated in our meeting.

He forwarded a policy which was adopted by the Board of Supervisors on October 16th of 2019 regarding parking lots and use of vehicles in the parking lot.

So I have, it's a lengthy policy.

I only printed six copies of it because I did not want to kill too many trees.

Is there a summary you would care to call to our attention?

So under this policy, the parking lot here at Cub Fifth has been designated a non-public forum.

which means that it's not generally an area that's open for public extraction.

There are certain provisions and exceptions that are made.

Its policy gives the chief executive

the ability, or the county executive excuse me, the ability to regulate what is going on in the parking lot.

And we can also designate that authority to designate which would include a department head.

So this is, I think, contrary to what we've heard,

And this policy was adopted a number of years ago.

I don't think it's very easy to find or locate on the county's website.

So I just got this a little bit before this meeting, so I had an opportunity to get it to the board.

Does anything in the policy speak specifically to the use for elections?

Yeah.

OK. Yeah.

Very good.

Just really briefly, a little history.

When early voting first was established, and it was established that room A would be for early voting,

there was a back and forth negotiation between facilities management and the registrar's office as to what was going to be allowed initially facility I believe it was facility management and FES is I never that is facility what I call facilities management initially did not want any kind of campaigning at all signed or anything

but they were convinced that this now being a voting space and that voting spaces traditionally have been allowed to have yard signs and to have campaigners.

And so they said, okay, we will say that this part of the entrance road can have yard signs.

They must be put up in the morning and taken down in the evening.

This part of the parking lot can be for campaigns.

And I won't repeat what I said before because that's what it is all about.

They did, back in the beginning, establish much more parking spaces for voters.

that has kind of fallen apart.

And the only ones that have actual signs saying voter parking only are four spaces up on top as you come in.

Before, we've had signs saying voter parking here, and they've had voter parking signs right at places.

Those have not been done for this election or for, I think, the previous election or two.

May I remark on what you just said?

I think that's very consistent with facilities calling the shots about the use of the parking lot and so on.

Can I address the phone?

Sure.

I send all of you this electronically.

Thank you.

And I'd like to just read four sentences coming from

I think that what he said at the last meeting actually is consistent with what this policy is saying because he's talking about the grounds as a whole but then he's saying okay there's this little island that we have carved out just for campaigners so and so this is what he said about this he said in short meaning in short

Oh, let me see.

The impetus for my sending a message to Mr. Mowry and to Bruce Jones is that this weekend there were some protesters.

It's invisible, Charlottesville.

And I'm not calling them protesters.

They are defined as protesters.

They are defined as activists.

And they are planning to come on Saturday.

I think they got some mistaken information that we were voting on Saturday.

We are not.

but we hear also on Sunday.

And so Mr. Mowery sent this in response.

And I'll just read you the four pieces at the end.

He said, in short, the only space campaigning is allowed is the designated parking space area.

Anyone not voting or conducting county business is not permitted to remain elsewhere on the property.

This applies to on weekends as well.

If individuals are not actively voting, they were ruled to leave.

During the week, I have instructed my staff to ask anyone who is not voting or conducting county business to depart.

Just so I get it right, the only space campaigning is allowed is the?

Five spaces.

Correct.

It would.

It would.

Only what they're saying is only

It does.

The facility is gonna hold that.

But how does this go as far as someone from the tent

going out of their tent and saying, as a voter approaches, we hope you will vote for blah, blah, blah.

When I'm reading this, it means they can't do that.

Well, I've always just seen, well, let me ask you,

I've always just seen people sitting inside the tent and then voters walk past and maybe they say, oh, you know, would you like a brochure or something like this?

But I always thought that was allowable because they were outside the 40 foot lot.

Is that your understanding, Andrea?

So if we put in our guidance or a policy to match this.

Well, my understanding is that parking lot, the parking space area has been designated.

So if they're staying in that parking space area to do the campaigning, that would be permissible under the policy.

So we're just walking out into the area that is...

Okay, let's say, okay, we've got the five spaces.

Yeah, you're here, you're in the tent.

And I'll share with the board my understanding there was a request potentially earlier this year that the governor wanted to come and do some announcement on the steps of the other county office building, which is also a designated non-public forum.

And in the event that there's something that's going to be happening like that, that individual or group needs to get a permit issued by the county to be able to conduct that.

So the decision was made that the activity would not be happening on the steps of the county office building, that it would happen somewhere else.

Right, music to hear.

So it sounds like, is this going to impact, so Indivisible has this planned for this weekend, it sounds like this impacts them as well.

It does.

As someone said, they'll ask them to leave.

Unless they've gotten a permit.

But again, not our concern.

And also to the representatives, I'll email it to the parties themselves.

I still have that.

Completely come to an agreement on what can be in the five spaces.

Notice how the hot potato has moved back to them.

Did you have a question?

Well, Mr. Chairman, can you

What you said.

You said.

Based on the information we received from

our able attorney and the letter that the registrar read from county facilities or FES.

It is apparent that the electoral board does not need to establish any policy or guidance that this falls in the domain of the facilities or the FES department and that they are going to take such enforcement actions as may from time to time be necessary.

You talk too fast.

It's a long-standing problem.

Basically you're saying based on the information from the county attorney and from the county, it is apparent that the electoral board need take no action.

I think that's where we are.

Okay.

I don't think so.

Do you have a question?

You have something else we need to do.

If someone is coming as part and is coming up to say social services and are going through in front of the tents,

They've got social services, there's no issue with that.

That is kind of a problem where normal polling place, nothing else can be happening, but obviously this is the government.

Government employees must come in and government employees must park down there and government employees must walk up the steps.

I asked if there was any other business we needed to take care of and nobody spoke for that.

Andrea had a couple of questions.

We need to get a closed session to discuss the CEO.

Well then let me...

Movedly the Albemarle County Electoral Board convene a closed meeting pursuant to section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia under subsection 1 to discuss and consider applications of prospective candidates as officers of election and to discuss the assignment of officers' election to polling places.

Any opposed?

And we'll be in closed session as soon as everyone leaves.

I think I have been.

I move that the electoral board certified by a recorded vote that to the best of each member's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

Second.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

I don't think we have anything else from our closed meeting to vote on.

And then we are adjourned.