Former Virginia Attorney General Alleges Election Discrepancies in Critical County

Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is sounding the alarm over alleged mail-in ballot discrepancies in the state's second-largest county which could pose significant complications for the GOP on Election Day.

In a series of tweets, Cuccinelli, who is currently leading the Election Transparency Institute, raised concerns about mail-in ballot processing in Prince William County where the competitive 7th and 10th Congressional Districts converge.

“VA election integrity problem in Prince William County,” Cuccinelli said on Twitter. “Gen. Registrar employees are opening mail-ballot envelopes-exposing voters' ballots(!)-& then presenting them to partisan Election Officials & asking them to certify that the exposed ballots aren't spoiled!”

“This is a fixable problem,” he tweeted. “If confronted. I'm sure this will be discussed further tomorrow (now today/Thursday). Where else in Virginia is this happening?”

Until this year, Prince William County used a two-envelope system but the recent change seems to have triggered the alleged errors however the issue has left election integrity advocates uneasy, according to Legal Newsline.

“All the rest of the counties in the Seventh District are smaller counties so the bulk or the biggest part of the decision-making for that race is in Prince William County,” said Clara Bell Wheeler, a senior fellow with the Virginia Institute for Public Policy. “They are going to have a lot of mail-in ballots.”

While expressing concern over the new mail-in ballot system Wheeler also advised Democrat and Republican officials of Prince William County along with the electoral board to report any issues to the Registrar's office immediately.

“They should go in there tomorrow and say, ‘We want to come in here and watch from now on because you have not been careful or as careful as you needed to be and you have clearly opened the security envelope containing the ballot, which is against the law,'” she said.

The 7th Congressional District, which is located on the outer edge of Washington, D.C. suburbs, is currently represented by incumbent Democrat Abigail Spanberger who was first elected in 2018. 

Republican challenger Yesli Vega, a law enforcement officer endorsed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin and former President Donald Trump, would be the first Latino Virginian to serve in Congress.

“Yesli Vega is a police officer whose parents came to Virginia to pursue the American dream. In addition to risking her life to get dangerous criminals off our streets, Yesli serves her community as a county supervisor and is a strong voice for parents who want to see excellence return to our public schools. Virginians need Yesli in Congress because they deserve real representation — someone who actually shared their struggles, thinks for herself, and will work to lower their costs instead of voting for Joe Biden's bad policies driving up inflation. I'm proud to endorse and support Yesli Vega, because she'd be a breath of fresh air in Washington.” Gov. Youngkin said.

Spanberger recently made headlines with her shocking rebuke of Democrat leadership while accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of using “diversionary tactics” after scrapping a planned vote for legislation that would ban lawmaker stock trading. (RELATED: House Democrat Calls for New Leadership in Scathing Rebuke of Speaker Pelosi)

“This moment marks a failure of House leadership — and it's yet another example of why I believe that the Democratic Party needs new leaders in the halls of Capitol Hill, as I have long made known,” Spanberger said in a statement at the time.

RealClearPolitics has labeled the 7th Congressional District a “toss up” but Vega has made the race competitive in a district won by Joe Biden in 2020.

In Virginia's 10th Congressional District, political newcomer Hung Cao, a former Navy Special Operations Officer is challenging incumbent Democrat Jennifer Wexton. RealClearPolitics has labeled the race “leans Democrat,” in 2020 Biden won the district with 59.2 percent of the vote.

Wexton was elected in 2018 after decades of Republican control. She is a former Virginia prosecutor whose prior campaigns focused on law and order but has focused this campaign on abortion rights.

Democrats currently control nearly two-thirds of the Virginia congressional seats, and flipping Virginia's 10th district from blue to red could be key if Republicans hope to take control of Congress. 

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