By Brian Trompeter
Candidate Sandra Allen has emerged victorious in the contest for the remaining sixth Vienna Town Council seat, following a razor-close finish certified by the Fairfax County Electoral Board one week after the Nov. 7 election.
According to election officials, Allen received 2,053 votes, narrowly edging out Shelley Mountjoy’s total of 2,046 votes.
Voters cast a whopping 2,073 write-in ballots during the election. Candidate Beth Eachus, who chairs the town’s Transportation Safety Commission and conducted a well-publicized write-in campaign complete with yard signs, received 1,803 votes.
Voters also re-elected Council incumbents Howard Springsteen, Ray Brill Jr. and Charles Anderson (as well as Mayor Linda Colbert, who ran unopposed) and elected new members Jessica Ramakis and Roy Baldwin. All six Council members and the mayor earned two-year terms that begin in January.
Allen thanked voters for the trust they placed in her leadership, saying she had raised issues that were important but not always addressed. She promised to work with other Council members and the mayor to implement changes that would improve residents’ lives.
“I will make sure their voices are heard,” she said. “I welcome feedback from all residents. It is important to know what is happening and how our decisions are impacting their lives.”
Many residents are dissatisfied with some of the Council’s decisions and elected officials must be held accountable, Allen said.
“We should expect results from our elected leaders,” she said. “Our emotions should not be weaponized against one another. We should be one community that cares for the less fortunate and we should try to rooting for the underdog.”
Allen listed core things she grew up believing and later taught her sons.
“If you speak up, changes will happen,” she said. “If you are honest and work hard, you can prosper in the U.S.”
Mountjoy congratulated Allen for her victory.
“I am happy for Sandra. I know she put considerable time into going door-to-door to meet voters one-on-one and had a strong desire to be on Council,” Mountjoy said. “I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet her. I found her to be sincere and she will bring some much-needed diversity to the table. I genuinely wish her the best.”
This year’s election was a marked departure from previous ones for Town Council, because of a General Assembly bill in 2021 that required municipal elections to be held at the same time as November general elections instead of in May.
The Town Council previously had staggered terms with three seats up for grabs each May and mayoral elections held concurrently in even-numbered years. In response to the new law, the Council canceled the 2022 election and extended some members’ terms so as to have all six Council seats and the mayor’s post up for election in November during odd-numbered years.
“Although I acknowledge that the current Council unanimously preferred to keep elections in May, it’s hard for me to find a downside to increased voter participation,” Mountjoy said. “That being said, the ballot was quite long and with Council being nonpartisan, there is an increased time commitment needed by voters to research candidates. Differentiating candidates on the ballot is something I have struggled with myself, in the past, when voting for Council.”
Eachus thanked Vienna residents for their support and she was appreciative and honored by the write-in votes she received.
“I am so very grateful to be a member of this wonderful community,” Eachus said. “If I won, then I would have been excited to be a member of Town Council with all the new experiences and opportunities to serve Vienna. But now I will instead devote my time to other causes that I am also passionate about – and continue to serve our community.”
In addition to the unusually high write-in total, this year’s election featured the earlier dropout of candidate Elizabeth Korondy.
Voters cast a total of 22,463 votes in the election. County officials disqualified 90 overvotes, or ballots where voters marked more choices than there were available seats.
Recounts are never automatic and qualified candidates would need to apply to the Circuit Court to have the ballots counted again, said Eric Spicer, Fairfax County general registrar and director of elections.
Write-in votes kept Fairfax County election officials on their toes during this election, not just in Vienna but in Clifton (where write-in mayoral candidate Thomas Peterson won with 67 votes, besting William Holloway’s 62) and in the race for Fairfax Commonwealth’s attorney, where thousands of voters wrote in attorney Ed Nuttall’s name in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat incumbent Steve Descano (D).
“Thirty-six staff and election officers worked in teams of two over three days to transcribe more than 60,000 write-in names in qualifying contests – commonwealth’s attorney, Vienna Town Council, Clifton Town Council and Clifton mayor,” Spicer said. “The teams transcribed the names as best as they could read them. The Fairfax County Electoral Board reviewed the transcribed names for those four races and determined which were to be tallied for the same person. Ballots are never discarded.”
