A Lynchburg judge on Tuesday again dismissed a complaint by one of the city’s candidates for commonwealth’s attorney who asked for what the judge called “extraordinary relief” disproportionate to the mistake of printing “Christopher” instead of “Chris” on the ballot.
When Chris White submitted his candidate qualification form in January, he requested to appear on the ballot as “Chris G. White,” but he is listed by his full name, Christopher G. White, instead.
He filed a lawsuit against the Virginia Department of Elections to address the mistake, and it was dismissed on Oct. 22 due to multiple procedural errors made by White. White filed a separate petition, called a writ of mandamus, against Lynchburg Registrar Daniel Pense on Oct. 17 and amended it on Oct. 23 after learning of the procedural errors.
Tuesday’s hearing addressed the amended petition against Pense.
In both the initial lawsuit and amended petition, White sought more than $900,000 in damages to cover the $50,000 that he’s put toward his campaign and one elected term’s worth of a commonwealth’s attorney’s salary. He also asked for voting to be stopped until the ballots were corrected, and asked for previously submitted votes to be scrapped and redone.
More than 7,400 early votes have been cast in Lynchburg this fall, said Nathan Schnetzler, Pense’s legal counsel, at the hearing.
Judge F. Patrick Yeatts, of the 24th Judicial Circuit of Virginia, identified seven reasons why he dismissed White’s case, including the fact that White is not entitled to the “extraordinary relief” he sought — especially the act of disenfranchising thousands of early voters.
“I don’t think I was asking too much at all,” White said in an interview after the hearing. “Unfortunately here, in this country and even here locally, you have to ask for everything or you just get ignored.”
White also made four procedural errors with the amended petition, Yeatts said, and was asking the registrar’s office for something it can’t do. Only the governor can pause elections, according to state code, he said.
Schnetzler said — and Yeatts later agreed — that the case lacks merit in part due to White’s timeline of actions. Sample ballots were posted on the Virginia Department of Elections’ website in August and the registrar hosted a “Logic and Accuracy” test on Sept. 3 to give candidates the opportunity to correct ballot issues, according to a court document filed by Schnetzler. But White didn’t attend the Sept. 3 event or “raise any objection about the ballot until September 28,” more than a week after early voting started, the court document states.
“One who seeks equity must do equity,” Schnetzler’s court document reads. “Here, petitioner had multiple opportunities to request revisions to the ballot prior to the start of early voting, but he did nothing.”
In an interview after the hearing, White declined to comment on the judge’s reasons for dismissing the case. He said he wasn’t instructed to check the state election department’s website in August and likely had a scheduling conflict with the Sept. 3 event.
White said his case wasn’t about his name but about holding the registrar’s office responsible for being accurate.
“It’s definitely about accountability,” he said. “I don’t wish anything poor for anybody that’s running the registrar’s office, but I just wish that they would do what they’re supposed to do.”
White is running for commonwealth’s attorney against incumbent Bethany Harrison, who was elected in 2017 and reelected in 2021. She attended the Oct. 22 and Tuesday hearings.
“The court found that not only had he again failed to follow the rules of court, but even the merits of his case lacked anything substantive,” Harrison said in an interview after the Tuesday hearing. “Overall, what it demonstrates is that my opponent lacks the experience, he lacks the competence, to be your next commonwealth’s attorney.”
For more information on Lynchburg elections, see the Lynchburg page of our Voter Guide.