Lynchburg Republicans are moving forward with a nomination process that limits who can vote to choose the party’s city council candidates, continuing a fight they started two years ago to work around a new state law that effectively prohibits the process.
The Lynchburg Republican City Committee voted Monday to schedule a nomination process known as a firehouse primary for May 30 to determine the party’s city council nominees for the November election. To vote in the firehouse primary, voters must be “in accord with the principles of the Republican Party,” meet qualifications of Republican Party loyalty, and be able to attend the Saturday vote in person — unless they qualify for an absentee ballot.
Firehouse primaries are run by local political parties — unlike primary elections, which are run by the state — and are often posited as a method to keep members of other political parties from diluting the vote.
Since 2024, when a law that effectively bans firehouse primaries took effect, there’s been disagreement over its implications.
The LRCC plans to “light the way” in the new primary landscape, said chair Veronica Bratton, as it adapts its firehouse primary plan to the law and uses it to name three candidates. The council’s three at-large seats — currently held by Mayor Larry Taylor and council members Marty Misjuns and Stephanie Reed, all Republicans — will be up for grabs this November.
Taylor and Reed, along with challenger Chris Boswell, announced their candidacy as a slate called “Team Lynchburg” in February. Misjuns has not yet announced a bid for reelection.
A firehouse primary would arm a limited number of Republican voters with the power to determine who will represent the party on the ballot in November — and possibly represent the city on the dais, which currently has a 6-1 Republican majority.
That majority is often seen as divided between two factions, which stack Taylor, Reed and council member Chris Faraldi in a group separate from Misjuns, Vice Mayor Curt Diemer and council member Jacqueline Timmer.
Proponents of the firehouse primary say the nomination method keeps the Republican ticket free from Democratic influence. Critics say that, in the process, a firehouse primary disenfranchises some Republicans, too, and rests power with a small group of party insiders who will likely favor the latter faction.
In a statement Monday night, Reed said, “Tonight, party insiders in the Lynchburg Republican City Committee rammed through their backroom plan to hand-pick the Republican nominees for Lynchburg City Council.”
“If Misjuns and others like him were to be on the firehouse ballot, what this committee has just proposed will almost ensure their victory because of how they are rigging the process,” Reed added in a phone interview Tuesday. “Team Lynchburg is here to get better representation for the citizens of Lynchburg on city council. In order for that to happen, we’ve got to have an honest and fair election.”
The majority of committee members in attendance Monday night voted in favor of the plan to host a firehouse primary, citing in part the need for Lynchburg to continue to be a stronghold for the Republican Party and create a method other local committees can use to protect their nominations from Democratic influence.
“Because we are in Lynchburg, we don’t realize just how much of a shining light in the Republican Party this committee is. I mean everybody in the state knows about Lynchburg, and not in a bad way,” said LRCC member Steve “Doc” Troxel, who gave the report from the firehouse primary committee on Monday night. Troxel continued over laughter in the audience, “Well, in a bad way to the Democrats.”
A second attempt to work around Helmer’s law
Bratton said at the Monday meeting that Lynchburg is the only locality pursuing a firehouse primary in 2026.
Every other locality that needs a primary to select its candidates will do so through a state-run election. Because Virginia does not register voters by party, state-run primaries are open to all voters. That means those who typically vote for Democratic candidates can have a say in who is on the Republican ticket, and vice versa.
Proponents of firehouse primaries see them as a strategy to stop those crossover votes from influencing who represents the party on the ballot.
“Understand, the only people we’re trying to keep from voting in our elections are Democrats,” Troxel said.
Legislation that passed in 2021 and took effect in January 2024 effectively banned firehouse primaries and other party-run processes such as conventions in Virginia. It requires any nominating method to make provisions for absentee voters — something that those party-run processes have never done or aren’t logistically able to do.
The law passed with bipartisan support and is known colloquially as Helmer’s law, named for its introduction by Del. Dan Helmer, D-Fairfax County. He said he designed it to ensure that Virginians who have historically faced barriers to participating in the electoral process are not excluded from primaries.
Helmer said in a phone interview Tuesday that his inspiration for the law came in part from his experience serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, when he “was tired of folks like the Lynchburg Republicans trying to deny service members, students and people with disabilities the ability to choose their representatives in a party nominating process.”
In 2024, when Helmer’s law took effect, the LRCC started the process to conduct a firehouse primary anyway. It eventually pivoted and opted for a state-run primary instead after the state Republican Party and then-Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, advised that only state-run primaries meet muster of the new law.
“A political party may not select a nomination method that de facto requires covered voters to be physically present to participate or that otherwise has the practical effect of excluding their participation,” Miyares wrote in the 2024 opinion.
LRCC sees firehouse primary as ‘clearly within our legal right’
What’s different this year than in 2024, Bratton said, is that she believes she has a court ruling and a state party that are on her side.
In the wake of the 2024 election cycle, the LRCC filed a federal lawsuit in April against the Virginia Department of Elections, the State Board of Elections and elections Commissioner Susan Beals, arguing that Helmer’s law unconstitutionally strips political parties of their First Amendment right to free association. In July, a U.S. district judge granted a motion by Beals to dismiss the lawsuit.
But Bratton said she sees a path forward in the decision issued by Judge Norman Moon. At the Monday meeting, she cited specific sections of the ruling that she said work in the LRCC’s favor, including:
- The statement that “the Commonwealth has a duty to allow nomination methods that facilitate exclusive party affiliation and association”;
- The statement that “the Attorney General’s opinion is just that — an opinion. It is neither a binding interpretation of the law nor a source of law itself”;
- A clarification that Helmer’s law’s “plain language does not require elaborate, unfailing mechanisms” of absentee participation. “To avoid the ‘practical effect’ of exclusion, in other words, parties need only ensure practical levels of inclusion,” the ruling reads.
Those sections and others position the firehouse primary as “clearly within our legal right,” Bratton said.
Jeff Ryer, the newly elected chair of the Republican Party of Virginia, agreed that Moon’s ruling clears a path for Lynchburg. He said in a phone interview Tuesday that state party officials will review the call for the firehouse primary to make sure it’s in line with the state party plan and all provisions of state law.
The goal, Bratton said, is to have the firehouse primary plan be legally airtight so it can be used as a model for other localities moving forward.
“I want to do something that can be replicated, can be duplicated so that other committees can come behind us and do the same thing,” she said.
Bratton filed notice with the Virginia Department of Elections on Feb. 20 that the LRCC will nominate its candidates for office by a non-primary method, according to paperwork distributed at the Monday meeting. The official call and plan for the firehouse primary have been submitted to the Republican Party of Virginia for approval as well, Bratton said.
The firehouse primary plan
There were 37 LRCC members and five proxies in attendance at Monday’s meeting. A majority voted to approve the party’s call for a firehouse primary.
The call schedules a firehouse primary for Saturday, May 30, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Brookville Ruritan Club in Lynchburg.
All legal and qualified Virginia voters “who are in accord with the principles of the Republican Party, and who, if requested, express … their intent to support all of its nominees for public office in the ensuing election” may vote in the firehouse primary, according to the call.
According to the Republican Party of Virginia’s party plan, a voter who “publicly supports a candidate in opposition to a Republican nominee shall not be qualified” to vote. Bratton said at the meeting that yard signs, social media posts and other actions will all be counted as forms of public support.
Those who have voted in the primary of a party other than the Republican Party within the last five years are also unable to vote at Lynchburg’s firehouse primary, according to the party plan. Such voters can qualify for an exception if they express in writing that they renounce affiliations to other parties, are in accord with the principles of the Republican Party, and will support the nominees of the Republican Party in the future.
Bratton said a credentialing committee, formed by members of the LRCC, will evaluate if voters are qualified to participate in the firehouse primary using data from the state Department of Elections and the GOP database and “screening” for political involvement.
Troxel described the firehouse primary and such voter screening as a way to “maintain the integrity” of the Republican Party.
“This opens the door to subjective, behind-the-scenes decisions about who gets a voice and who does not,” Reed wrote in Monday night’s statement. “Rather than ensuring every Republican has a voice, the LRCC has created a system where they can pick and choose who is ‘Republican enough’ to participate while also leaving many voters with no realistic opportunity to cast a ballot.”
Those who are at work, on vacation or otherwise unable to get to the Brookville Ruritan Club in the set time window on May 30 cannot cast a vote, unless they qualify for an absentee ballot.
According to the call, absentee ballots will be available to qualified Republican voters who also fall into one of the five categories of protected groups described in Helmer’s law: service members on active duty, those temporarily living outside the country, students attending an institution of higher education, people with disabilities, and people with or exposed to a contagious disease that is a threat to public health.
The LRCC will purchase the permanent Republican absentee voter list and send mail notices to those on the list to explain how to request an absentee ballot for the firehouse primary, according to a plan distributed at the Monday meeting. Voters can request absentee ballots online and must indicate which of the five protected classes they are.
Absentee ballots will be collected and processed “consistent with the standards” of the Virginia Department of Elections, according to the plan distributed Monday. Troxel, a former member of the city’s electoral board, and Dan Pense, the city’s former registrar, are on the committee that will oversee the process.
Moon’s ruling reads that the LRCC “has a duty to first attempt compliance with state elections laws” — including Helmer’s law that protects absentee voters.
“So we take it very seriously. I want to make sure every i is dotted, every t is crossed,” Bratton said.
Critics point to disenfranchisement
Helmer said Miyares’ 2024 opinion “indicated that it was practically impossible” for Lynchburg to follow the law while executing a firehouse primary.
“I’m exploring every active measure to make sure the law is followed, and every service member, student, person with a disability, has the opportunity to participate in the process, as the law demands. It’s a matter of civil rights,” Helmer said. “I’m just saying, if they want to break the law, there will be consequences.” He did not elaborate.
The bigger picture, Reed wrote in the Monday statement, is that a limited group of people can qualify for the LRCC’s absentee ballots. Those who are “working, traveling, or are otherwise unable to attend during that narrow timeframe” on May 30 are excluded.
At Monday’s meeting, one audience member shared his work schedule for May 30 and said he wouldn’t be able to attend the initially scheduled window from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. After discussion, the committee voted to extend the hours of the firehouse primary to start at 8 a.m. so the audience member could cast a vote before his shift started.
Another audience member shared her plans for a likely trip to Florida over the last weekend in May. Del. Wendell Walker, R-Lynchburg, who was also in the audience, asked what would happen if he was called to Richmond at the end of May.
“We just can’t accommodate every situation,” Bratton said to the audience.
Randy Smith, the chair of the Lynchburg Democratic Committee, said he sees the firehouse plan as “doing a whole lot of work to disenfranchise a whole lot of voters.”
“As a party chair, I get it. I understand that having individuals from another party come in and vote for those candidates on your [primary] ticket, it gives you a little heartburn, right? But that’s how we operate in Virginia — that is the method at hand,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean, from my perspective, that you shut the process down and disenfranchise a whole lot of your very own voters — that’s who they’re disenfranchising in an effort to keep out a small handful of Democratic voters.”
“These unpatriotic Republicans who are trying to do this know exactly what they’re doing,” Helmer said. “They want to deny democratic accountability and pick their representatives.”
What’s next?
The LRCC has received applications from seven potential city council candidates and has not yet received applications from Taylor, Reed and Boswell, Bratton said. She added that more candidates can file and some may drop out between now and the party’s April 11 filing deadline. Regardless, she said, “I’m excited that we have such a bench” as primary plans take shape.
Candidates must complete an application with the party and pay a $400 filing fee to be on the ballot, Bratton said. The LRCC is also requesting, but not requiring, candidates to go through an interview process, she added.
Members of the LRCC’s elective office committee have standardized questions they plan to ask to “vet and evaluate candidates for office for the Republican Party, and to report to the members here,” said committee member Peter Cefaratti. Bratton is also planning to host a committee forum and a public forum so voters can get to know the candidates.
In the meantime, members of the firehouse primary committee need to choose a method for how the firehouse winners will be decided.
Monday’s vote included approval of a line that reads, “the top three candidates, who also have votes from a majority [50% + 1] of the voters who participated, will be declared the Republican Party nominees.” The language implies a ranked-choice voting process, but does not specify how the ranked-choice voting will be conducted.
The LRCC “adopted a confusing ranked choice voting plan — a method of voting the LRCC voted to oppose in 2023,” Reed wrote in the Monday night statement. “While ranked choice voting was selected as the method of balloting, the committee failed to vote on guidance for how these ballots will be tabulated or collected.”
Walker said in a statement Tuesday that he “appreciate[s] the time and effort so many have put into this process.”
“But with so much on the line this year with the unconstitutional redistricting scheme before Virginia voters, we need to remain laser focused on defeating that amendment. That is where our attention should be,” he said. “Fighting amongst ourselves over the method of nomination only serves as a distraction from the bigger picture.”