A county in Virginia is admitting that their tally in the 2020 presidential election shorted President Joe Biden and overreported Donald Trump’s count, according to NBC News.
In 2022, the office of Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares formed the special Election Integrity Unit “because Virginians expressed concerns to him about our elections as he traveled across the Commonwealth.”
The unit has only brought one prosecution thus far against Prince William County Office of Elections former registrar, Michele White. White was charged with corrupt conduct, making a false statement and neglect of duty. But Miyares’ office dropped the charges earlier this month with little explanation.
Last week, the Prince William County Office of Elections revealed that the county mistakenly underreported Biden’s margin of victory over Trump there in the 2020 presidential election by about 4,000 votes.
Biden was shorted by 1,648 votes, and Trump’s count was overreported by 2,327 votes. Current registrar, Eric Olsen emphasized that the error in the margin of victory would not have changed the results of the election given that Biden defeated Trump by more than 450,000 votes in Virginia and by more than 60,000 votes in Prince William County.
The mistake also affected down ballot races as well.
In the race for US Senate, Democrat Mark Warner defeated Republican Daniel Gade by more than 500,000 votes, but in Prince William County, Warner’s count was shorted by 1,589 votes and Gade’s was shorted by 107 votes.
White’s attorney said the county’s election board should be blamed for the errors, not their client.
“The board certified incorrect results and they, and the attorney general’s office, attempted to assign blame to Ms. White for their mistakes,” the attorney said.
Olsen said in a statement that new procedures and systems are in place to prevent similar errors in the future.
“Mistakes are unfortunate but require diligence and innovation to correct,” Olsen said. “They do not reflect a purposeful attempt to undermine the integrity of the electoral process and the investigation into this matter ended with that conclusion.”
