And then there were five.

Del. Dan Helmer of Fairfax County announced Wednesday morning that he is joining the race for the Democratic nomination in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District next year.

Helmer, a U.S. Army veteran who was first elected in 2019, led the House Democratic Caucus’ campaign effort this fall, which resulted in Democrats picking up three seats and regaining control of the chamber.

The 10th District is currently represented by Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a Democrat, but Wexton announced earlier this year she will not seek reelection for health reasons.

Other Democrats who have announced campaigns for the seat are:

• Current state Sen. Jennifer Boysko of Fairfax County
• Former Speaker of the House Eileen Filler-Corn
• Former Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni
• Current Del. David Reid of Loudoun County

Loudoun Board of Supervisors Chair Phyllis Randall had been mentioned as a candidate, but she ruled out a run Tuesday, saying she wanted to focus on her third term as board chair.

The 10th District includes all of Loudoun County — making up more than half its voters — along with all of Fauquier and Rappahannock counties and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park. It also includes the western half of Prince William County and about 15,000 voters in the Clifton and Union Mill areas of southern Fairfax County.

After knocking off Republican Barbara Comstock in 2018, Wexton won reelection to the newly drawn 10th District last year with about 53% of the vote, defeating Republican Hung Cao.

Helmer was reelected Tuesday to House District 10, defeating Republican Jim Thomas with over 58% of the vote. His district covers southwestern Fairfax, including the town of Clifton and the Centreville area. Before redistricting after the 2020 Census, he also represented a small portion of Prince William.

Helmer is the son of an immigrant and the grandson of refugees and Holocaust survivors, according to a news release from his campaign. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and served tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea. He currently owns a small business and continues to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

“My grandparents came to America to escape the Nazis,” Helmer said. “It’s why I volunteered to serve our country and protect the democracy that took us in. While I was proud to serve, I lost friends in Iraq and Afghanistan because politicians lacked the courage to stand up to President Bush’s misguided wars. Our democracy failed us.”

He said democracy faces greater threats today: “MAGA extremists are seeking to undermine free and fair elections and strip away the right to an abortion, all while coddling a gun lobby that floods our streets with weapons of war.”

According to the release, in the General Assembly, Helmer supported gun safety bills, the repeal of Virginia’s “Right to Work” laws and women’s healthcare.

He lives in Fairfax with his wife, Karen, a public school educator, and their two sons.

Photo via Dan Helmer/Facebook. This article was written by FFXnow’s news partner InsideNoVa.com and republished with permission. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.

(Updated at 10 a.m. on 11/16/2023) A week after polls closed, the next mayors and councils for the towns of Vienna and Clifton have been decided.

The Fairfax County Electoral Board certified the local race results for this year’s general election yesterday (Tuesday), including for a Vienna Town Council contest where write-in votes exceeded votes for two of the seven candidates on the ballot.

However, none of the submitted candidates received enough votes to shift the outcome of the race, according to the Fairfax County Office of Elections. Vienna Transportation Safety Commission chair Beth Eachus, who began campaigning as a write-in candidate in September, received 1,803 of the 2,073 write-in votes, county election officials said.

The names and vote totals of the other write-ins weren’t identified.

Instead, budget analyst and former Fairfax County School Board candidate Sandra Allen has secured the last of six council seats with 2,053 votes — just seven more than the 2,046 that went to Shelley Mountjoy, a former community college professor and creator of the Vienna Votes outreach project.

Allen will join Vienna Planning Commissioner Jessica Ramakis and Board of Architectural Review Chair Roy Baldwin as newcomers to the council. All three incumbents — Howard Springsteen, Chuck Anderson and Ray Brill — won reelection.

A total of 5,981 ballots were cast in the town council race — a 48.5% turnout rate for the town’s 12,323 registered voters, according to the county elections office.

With voters allowed to choose up to six candidates, the 22,463 votes cast broke down as follows:

• Howard J. Springsteen — 3,535
• Jessica Ramakis — 3,465
• Charles “Chuck” Anderson — 3,418
• Ray Brill, Jr. — 2,951
• Roy J. Baldwin — 2,922
• Sandra Allen — 2,053
• Shelley Mountjoy — 2,046
• Write-in votes — 2,073

Mayor Linda Colbert also won a second term after running unopposed.

This was the Town of Vienna’s first November election since the Virginia General Assembly adopted a law in 2021 requiring all municipal elections still held in May to move.

Clifton mayor defeated by write-in votes

While Vienna didn’t see a successful write-in campaign, Clifton Mayor William Hollaway has been unseated after receiving 62 votes — five fewer than write-in candidate Thomas Peterson, according to the Virginia Department of Election results. A total of 131 votes were cast.

A lawyer, Holloway hasn’t faced any official opponents since 2010, when he was first elected as mayor.

His successor will be a familiar face for the town’s 330 residents. Peterson previously served as mayor of Clifton in 2006 to 2010, and his family runs the popular Peterson’s Ice Cream Depot.

Peterson told NBC4 that his wife had encouraged him to run after the candidate filing deadline had passed. His campaign consisted of just 10 yard signs, but Clifton voters “were excited to actually have a choice for the first time in 12 years,” NBC4 reported.

The Clifton Town Council race, which featured five official candidates vying for five seats, also saw a write-in victor in Mary Hess, who received 71 of the 471 total votes cast — more than incumbents Stephen Effros (65) and Darrell Poe (48).

Fairfax County’s overall voter turnout for the 2023 general election ended at 41.1%, a slight drop from the last time local races were on the ballot in 2019, according to the county elections office. The 323,816 ballots tallied include 3,900 provisional ballots and 9,476 mail-in ballots received after Election Day on Nov. 7.

State Sen. Jennifer Boysko has joined the race to replace Rep. Jennifer Wexton as Virginia’s 10th Congressional District representative.

Boysko announced her candidacy today (Thursday), just two days after winning reelection as senator for the 38th District, which encompasses Reston, Herndon, McLean and Great Falls. The district includes portions of the former 32nd District represented by State Sen. Janet Howell, who opted not to seek reelection after redistricting paired her with Boysko.

“From the PTA to the state Senate, I’ve always brought people together to find common ground and work towards common sense solutions,” Boysko said in her campaign announcement. “In Washington, I’ll continue to build on the work of Congresswoman Wexton to bring a better future for our kids and make life better for Virginia’s workers and families. This grassroots campaign to fight for what’s right starts right here, right now. I ask for your vote.”

Boysko’s new campaign website highlights access to abortion, gun violence prevention and “economic policies that work for everyone and lift people up” as the issues central to her platform.

Boysko previously served in the House of Delegates, representing the 86th District from 2016 to 2019, when she got elected to the Senate to replace Wexton, who had just been elected to Congress in 2018.

Wexton said on Sept. 18 that she won’t seek reelection next year after getting a rare neurological disorder called Progressive Supra-nuclear Palsy. Initially diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, the condition affects “body movements, walking and balance, and eye movements” and has no treatment, she said in her announcement.

Boysko’s competition for the 10th Congressional District — which covers Loudoun and Prince William counties — includes former House of Delegates speaker Eileen Filler-Corn and Mike Clancy, a Loudoun County resident, lawyer and business executive, per his campaign site.

Currently representing Fairfax County from Mantua to Burke as the 41st House District delegate, Filler-Corn announced this spring that she wouldn’t seek reelection, a move that prompted speculation of a potential run for governor. She launched her bid for Wexton’s seat on Oct. 18.

Clancy previously sought a Republican nomination for the 10th District in 2022.

With the Congressional election not coming until 2024, Boysko said in a statement to FFXnow that she remains committed to serving in the state legislature for the upcoming session, citing paid family medical leave as one of her top priorities:

I’ve had a lot of my constituents that have called and asked me if I would run for Congress. They believe that I’m the right person for the job, having represented half of Loudoun County over the past five years, having been in this community for 20 years, helping solve problems. I think my constituents want to see me work at a higher level as an asset and an ally  in the Commonwealth of Virginia to make sure we’re getting stuff done.

As for the state Senate, the election’s not until next year, and I look forward to serving in this 2024 General Assembly Session. There’s a lot that I want to get done. Thanks to the hard work of our candidates, we just won the majority in the House and the Senate. I want to get paid family medical leave done at the state level, and I believe that I’ll be able to do that during this session. I’m looking forward to this next year.

Boysko filed a bill during the 2023 General Assembly session that would’ve established a statewide paid family and medical leave program, starting in 2026, but the legislation was left in committee.

(Updated at 10:55 a.m. on 11/10/2023) About 40% of registered Fairfax County voters participated in this year’s general election, which decided state and local representatives who will shape policies on issues from abortion to land use in the coming years.

As of Friday (Nov. 10), 308,855 of the county’s 787,171 registered voters cast a ballot — a 39.2% turnout rate, according to unofficial results from the Virginia Department of Elections.

(Correction: The Virginia Department of Elections results previously indicated that 382,573 ballots had been cast in the election, a 48.6% turnout rate. This story has been revised to reflect the updated numbers.)

That falls short of the 44.3% turnout and 315,836 ballots cast in 2019, when the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, school board and all General Assembly seats were last up for grabs.

However, it still exceeds the turnout seen in earlier election cycles dating back to the beginning of this century, which hovered around 32% with a low of 30.3% in 2015, per county returns.

Eric Spicer, Fairfax County’s director of elections and general registrar, declined to comment on this year’s turnout numbers or speculate on “why they may differ from past years.”

The general election on Tuesday (Nov. 7) continued a trend of increased early voting that began after Virginia expanded absentee voting to all registered voters in 2020. This year, the county received 36,859 mail ballots on election night alone — more than the total number of absentee votes (36,584) in the 2019 general election.

There were 64,371 ballots cast through early voting, which ran from Sept. 22 to Saturday, Nov. 4, though the vast majority of voters still went to in-person polls on Election Day. Mail-in ballots will be counted until noon on Monday, Nov. 13, as long as they were postmarked on or before Nov. 7.

All election results, including for the still-to-be-determined Vienna Town council race, will be certified as final on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

Democrats celebrate near-sweep

The status quo largely held in Fairfax County, at least in terms of political parties, as candidates endorsed by the Democrats won every state contest and almost every local contest on the ballot.

Sheriff Stacey Kincaid and Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano were both reelected with no official challengers, though Descano’s opponent for the Democratic nomination, Ed Nuttall, endorsed a write-in campaign.

Descano’s victory was matched in Arlington by Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, who also first took office in 2020 on promises of criminal justice reform. Their Loudoun County counterpart, Buta Biberaj, however, is trailing by around 1,000 votes.

“Thank you to the people of Fairfax County for choosing me to serve another four years,” Descano said in a statement highlighting his reform efforts. “…I’ve still got a lot of fight in me — and we’ve got the momentum on our side. I’m eager to keep working for the people of Fairfax, and to realize a future where safety and justice do walk hand-in-hand.”

I've still got a lot of fight in me — and we've got the momentum on our side. I'm eager to keep working for the people of Fairfax, and to realize a future where safety and justice do walk hand-in-hand.

— Steve Descano (@SteveDescano) November 8, 2023

Chris Falcon, a deputy clerk for the Arlington Circuit Court, defeated retiring Fairfax County Circuit Court Clerk John Frey’s chief deputy clerk and chosen successor, Gerarda Culipher, with nearly 63% of the vote. Falcon has pledged to make circuit court cases accessible through Virginia’s statewide case information system.

With Democrats set to control both the state Senate and House of Delegates, the Fairfax County Democratic Committee characterized the results as “a clear rejection of the radical Republican agenda” in favor of “abortion healthcare rights, public education, gun safety, voting rights, and more.” Read More

Vienna residents will have to wait a few more days for the results of the town’s first-ever November election.

While Mayor Linda Colbert was easily reelected in an uncontested race, the makeup of next year’s town council remains less clear, thanks to a slew of write-in votes that could determine one of the six open seats.

According to preliminary results from yesterday’s general election, all three incumbent council members in the running — Howard Springsteen, Chuck Anderson and Ray Brill — have secured new two-year terms.

Seeking an eighth term on the council that he first joined in 2009, Springsteen received 3,349 votes, or 15.78% — the most of the seven candidates on the ballot. He was closely followed by Vienna Planning Commissioner Jessica Ramakis (3,265 votes, 15.38%) and Anderson (3,248 votes, 15.3%). Rounding out the likely winners are Brill (2,807 votes, 13.22%) and Vienna Board of Architectural Review chairman Roy Baldwin (2,756 votes, 12.98%).

Officially duking it out for the final seat are Shelley Mountjoy (1,907 votes, 8.98%) — a former community college professor and creator of the Vienna Votes outreach project — and Sandra Allen (1,898, 8.94%), a budget analyst who previously ran for an at-large Fairfax County School Board seat.

However, both women trail the 1,997 write-in votes counted so far, which account for 9.4% of all votes. While it remains to be seen who all those votes were for, Vienna Transportation Safety Commission chair Beth Eachus launched a late campaign in September as a write-in candidate.

The Fairfax County Office of Elections, which manages the town’s elections, is currently tallying the votes, but the final results won’t be known until they’re certified next Tuesday (Nov. 14), according to election officials.

“The Electoral Board is ultimately responsible for determining who the votes were cast for, along with the final tally for write-in votes cast,” Fairfax County Director of Elections Eric Spicer told FFXnow. “Mail-in ballots that arrive by noon on Monday, Nov. 13 will also need to be counted. Final elections results will not be available until the Electoral Board certifies them on Tuesday.”

Per the county’s unofficial results, there were 21,227 votes cast in the town council election, with each voter allowed to mark up to six candidates. In total, 5,638 ballots were cast in Vienna’s four precincts for a roughly 45% turnout of the 12,323 registered voters in the town, election officials say.

That easily surpasses the 16.9% turnout for the last town council race in 2021, when Springsteen and fellow incumbents Steve Potter and Nisha Patel competed against then-planning commissioner David Patariu for three seats.

The Virginia General Assembly passed a law in 2021 shifting all municipal elections from May to December. The move was intended to encourage more participation and reduce administrative costs, though some Vienna elected officials worried that local issues would get overshadowed by county, state and national races.

In response to the change, the town council voted in November 2021 to eliminate the staggered terms that put three seats on the ballot at a time. Going forward, all six council seats will be up for election every two years.

Propelled by a near-sweep of races in Northern Virginia, Democrats have retaken control of the Virginia House of Delegates and retained control of the state Senate.

With a few races still to be called early Wednesday, Democrats appear to have won at least 51 seats in the 100-member House and 21 seats in the 40-member state Senate, according to results compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project. This will mark the third consecutive election that control of the House has shifted — Democrats wrested it away from Republicans in 2019 but lost it in 2021.

The final makeup of the Senate appears likely to remain very similar as Democrats currently hold a 22-18 majority. Late Tuesday night, only one Senate race was in doubt – in the Tidewater area’s 24th District. In that race, Republican Danny Diggs led incumbent Sen. Monty Mason by only 51 votes out of more than 60,000 cast — a margin that, if it holds, means the race is probably headed to a recount.

The House, meanwhile, will flip from a 52-48 Republican majority to at least a 51-49 Democratic majority, based on Tuesday’s unofficial results. Three House races, primarily in the Richmond and Tidewater areas, remained to be called early Wednesday morning.

The results are a repudiation to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, whose Spirit of Virginia PAC poured millions of dollars into key races in an effort to hold the House and win control of the Senate. Youngkin hoped that control of both houses of the General Assembly would allow him to further his legislative agenda, including banning abortions after 15 weeks, except in certain cases.

Many national observers also thought that GOP victories Tuesday could lead Youngkin to make a late entry into the 2024 presidential election.

Emphasizing the importance of the Northern Virginia suburbs, Youngkin wrapped up the campaign with a rally in Leesburg on Monday night and an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning from Manassas.

Redistricting following the 2020 Census moved more seats to rapidly growing Northern Virginia, although nearly a third of legislators statewide retired or decided not to seek reelection because they were placed into districts with fellow legislators. State and national Democrats also poured millions of dollars into the campaigns, which were the most expensive in Virginia history.

As was expected, Democrats won all the General Assembly seats in Fairfax and Arlington counties and the city of Alexandria, along with those in eastern Prince William County and eastern Loudoun County, which have become more Democratic in recent years. Read More

(Updated at 12:35 a.m. on 11/8/2023) The Democratic Party’s hold in Fairfax County remains strong, despite Republican efforts to make headway by centering issues from high taxes and “parental rights” in public education to highway tolls.

Preliminary general election results show that candidates supported by the Democrats, either officially or through endorsements, are in line to win every seat on this year’s lengthy ballot — except for Springfield District supervisor.

Seeking a fifth term on the Board of Supervisors, incumbent Pat Herrity is beating Democratic challenger Albert Vega by roughly 14 percentage points, or around 5,000 votes, as of 10:30 p.m. That would be a more comfortable victory than the one Herrity had in 2019, when he edged out Linda Sperling by just 439 votes.

If the current results hold, Herrity will once again be the only Republican on the 10-seat Board of Supervisors, and all 12 Fairfax County School Board seats, along with the county’s entire General Assembly delegation, will be held by Democrats.

Sheriff Stacey Kincaid and Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano are on track for reelection, though about 22% of the ballots cast for the county’s top prosecutor are write-ins. While the results don’t show the names that voters put forward, a write-in campaign for Ed Nuttall — Descano’s opponent in the June Democratic primary — got endorsed by him and the Fairfax County Republican Committee.

In addition, Democrat Chris Falcon, currently the deputy court clerk in Arlington, won the circuit court clerk race with 62% of the vote, even after Republican Gerarda Culipher got endorsed by current Clerk John Frey, who’s retiring after 32 years.

The three open seats on the Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District‘s five-person board of directors will also go to candidates endorsed by the Democrats. Voters also approved a $435 million school bond referendum that will fund construction and renovation projects and the installation of security vestibules.

With nearly all precincts reporting, here are the apparent winners of this year’s general election:

Board of Supervisors

• Chairman: Jeff McKay
• Braddock District: James Walkinshaw
• Dranesville District: Jimmy Bierman
• Franconia District: Rodney Lusk
• Hunter Mill District: Walter Alcorn
• Mason District: Andres Jimenez
• Mount Vernon District: Dan Storck
• Providence District: Dalia Palchik
• Springfield District: Pat Herrity
• Sully District: Kathy Smith

School Board

• At Large: Ilryong Moon, Ryan McElveen, Kyle McDaniel
• Braddock District: Rachna Sizemore Heizer
• Dranesville District: Robyn Lady
• Franconia District: Marcia St. John-Cunning
• Hunter Mill District: Melanie Meren
• Mason District: Ricardy Anderson
• Mount Vernon District: Mateo Dunne
• Providence District: Karl Frisch
• Springfield District: Sandra Anderson
• Sully District: Seema Dixit

Read More

(Updated at 2:25 p.m. on 11/7/2023) Early voting is over, and Election Day 2023 is less than 24 hours away.

Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday). Virginia now allows same-day registration, though those voters will cast provisional ballots that are counted and validated later by the Fairfax County Electoral Board.

Mail ballots can be placed at dropboxes at all polling sites throughout the day. They can also still be sent to the Fairfax County Office of Elections (12000 Government Center Parkway, Suite 323) but must arrive by noon on Monday, Nov. 13 to be counted. In addition, the voter’s year of birth and the last four digits of their social security number needs to be written on the return envelope in lieu of the previously required witness signature.

As of last Wednesday (Nov. 1), almost 9% of registered voters had voted early in person or returned a mail ballot, amounting to about 64,000 votes, according to Fairfax County election officials. Last time this election cycle came around in 2019, there were 36,584 absentee votes total and an overall 44.3% turnout.

This year’s general election is focused on local and state offices, with every Board of Supervisors, school board and General Assembly seat up for grabs. Vienna is also holding mayoral and town council elections in November for the first time.

Board of Supervisors

Chairman

• Jeff McKay (D)
• Arthur Purves (R)

McKay, the incumbent, was elected in 2019 after serving as supervisor of the Franconia District — then known as Lee District — since 2008. Citing mental health services and pedestrian safety among his top priorities this year, he faces a challenge from Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance and a frequent critic of the county’s taxation and spending practices.

Braddock District

• James Walkinshaw (D)
• Carey Campbell (I)

No Republican candidates came forward to challenge Walkinshaw, who also didn’t get pulled into the Democratic primary in June. Chief of staff for Rep. Gerry Connolly before getting elected in 2019, he is once again facing off with independent Carey Chet Campbell, a Green Party member who’s now on his sixth campaign for Braddock District supervisor.

Dranesville District

• Puneet Ahluwalia (R)
• Jimmy Bierman (D)

Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust, who’s retiring after four terms in office, has endorsed Bierman as his successor. The McLean resident and former Dranesville District Democratic Committee chair has identified diversifying the local economy, addressing climate change and creating “viable transportation options” as his top priorities.

Bierman is squaring off with a Livingtston Group lobbyist and former Fairfax County Republican Committee first vice chairman. Calling politicians “out of touch” and “out of control” on his website, Ahluwalia lists his key issues as property taxes, public safety, education, recreation and the pay raise approved earlier this year for the incoming board.

Franconia District

• Rodney Lusk (D)
• Paul Beran (R)
• Mark T. Welch (I)

When he launched his reelection bid last year, Lusk told FFXnow that he hopes to continue championing affordable housing, full funding for schools, bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements and criminal justice reform.

Affordable housing is also a priority for Beran, who says he founded the advertising company Advertel. Per his campaign website, the Republican candidate is also focused on public safety, education and creating a “Great American Walk of Fame” to honor war heroes, first responders, historic figures and others along Richmond Highway, among other issues.

Welch, a longtime Springvale resident and former federal government employee, told On the MoVe that his priorities, if elected, would be “keeping the tax rate stable, improving public safety and focusing education dollars for the classroom.” Read More

(Updated at 3:50 p.m.) Marcia St. John-Cunning no longer needs to run as a write-in candidate to become the Franconia District’s next school board representative.

The former Fairfax County Public Schools interpreter and family liaison re-qualified for the general election ballot yesterday (Wednesday) after a county judge let her submit two more pages of signatures supporting her petition for candidacy.

Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Richard Gardiner told Fairfax County General Registrar Eric Spicer to accept the 17 signatures “as if [they were] filed with the registrar in March 2023,” according to the order shared on Twitter shared by Bryan Grahm, chair of the Fairfax County Democratic Committee, which has endorsed Marcia St. John-Cunning.

The Fairfax County Office of Elections confirmed her reinstated candidacy with a notice on its website. A spokesperson said the general registrar had no comment beyond that notice.

“We are pleased by today’s order and elated to see her reinstated as a qualified candidate for School Board,” Graham said in a statement last night. “Marcia St. John-Cunning is an exemplary candidate who has worked in our local schools and knows the families of Franconia. The Fairfax County Democratic Committee will be using the next week to ensure Marcia wins this election.”

St. John-Cunning is competing against Republican-endorsed candidate Kevin Pinkney to succeed current Franconia District Representative Tamara Derenak-Kaufax, who is retiring after 12 years on the Fairfax County School Board.

Though she obtained the Democratic endorsement without contest, St. John-Cunning faced two legal challenges by Republicans who argued that petition errors should’ve stopped Fairfax County General Registrar Eric Spicer from certifying her candidacy. A September lawsuit by the Fairfax County Republican Committee that took issue with the lack of dates by some signatures was dismissed.

However, a complaint filed by the 8th Congressional District Republican Committee and two voters in that district found traction with Gardiner, who ruled on Oct. 25 that 11 of St. John-Cunning’s submitted signatures were invalid because her address was wrong on one page of her petition.

The invalidation of those signatures left St. John-Cunning short of the 125 needed to qualify.

St. John-Cunning called the ruling “unprecedented” in an announcement on Saturday (Oct. 28) that she would run as a write-in candidate. With early voting underway since Sept. 22, more than 3,000 Franconia District voters had already cast a ballot, her campaign said.

According to the FCDC, St. John-Cunning’s legal team argued in court yesterday that the signatures should’ve been challenged before the filing deadline on Aug. 18, noting that she had gotten more signatures but didn’t submit them because the registrar said they weren’t necessary to qualify. Her candidacy was originally certified back on March 7.

In a statement, St. John-Cunning called Gardiner’s reinstatement of her candidacy “justice for the 3,000 residents who already exercised their constitutional right to vote.” Read More

The official ballots for next week’s general election identify just one candidate for the job of top prosecutor in Fairfax County, but a group that identifies itself as victims’ rights supporters hopes to push another man into the office instead.

Defense attorney Ed Nuttall, who lost the Democratic primary in June to incumbent Steve Descano, officially endorsed a write-in campaign last week that seeks to make him the next Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney.

According to a press release, the former county prosecutor agreed to publicly back the write-in push on Oct. 24 after the Fairfax County Democratic Committee removed him from the party, allegedly for attending a Brain Foundation fundraiser on Oct. 18 that featured Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity and Sully District supervisor candidate Keith Elliott — both Republicans.

“If the work of the write-in group is successful, Ed Nuttall would accept the job as Commonwealth’s Attorney serving Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax,” the Oct. 28 press release said.

Nuttall said the FCDC had also urged him “to denounce the write-in campaign on my behalf started by a victims rights group,” but he “refused to do so.”

“I was told more than once by more than one person to ‘resign for the good of the party,'” Nuttall said in an Oct. 25 Facebook post. “I chose not to do so because I’ve always put people over party. Those who know me know that disability rights and public safety have always been my passion, personally and professionally. I won’t let politics dictate how I act or whom I choose to work with, no matter the political price.”

The FCDC declined to comment when contacted by FFXnow, but chair Bryan Graham told WJLA that Nuttall’s attendance at a fundraiser supporting Republican candidates violated his pledge to the committee.

A spokesperson for Descano’s campaign also declined to comment.

According to its website, the write-in campaign for Nuttall was organized by “Fairfax County and Fairfax City voters” who supported his candidacy in the July 20 primary, which he lost by just over 10,000 votes.

“We waited for a couple of months for the current Commonwealth’s Attorney to implement action items brought to his attention during the primary campaign,” the campaign says. “However, that office continues to be disappointing and being politicized as a referendum.”

Changes sought by the group include oversight for the commonwealth’s attorney’s office, procedural training for prosecutors, and more communication with victims during plea deal negotiations. Spokesperson Scott Birdwell says the recommendations were compiled by 10 families of crime victims after a town hall in May.

The website says the campaign wasn’t authorized by any candidate or political group, but it has been backed by the Fairfax County Republican Committee, which held a rally on Oct. 3 with Herrity, Southern States Police Benevolent Association Fairfax County President Steve Monahan and GOP-endorsed at-large school board candidate Saundra Davis.

Nuttall didn’t “attend the rally as it was held during the day,” according to the Fairfax County Times. Read More