Virginia State Board of Elections members John O’Bannon and Rosalyn Dance listen as embattled Charles City County Electoral Board Member Maria Kinney (foreground) defends herself against an effort to remove her from the board. (Graham Moomaw/Virginia Mercury)
Two members of the Charles City County Electoral Board have asked Virginia officials to begin the process of removing the third member of the board, who is accused of sharing sensitive election machine information with a local GOP leader.
In a May 14 letter to the Virginia State Board of Elections, election officials in Charles City — a small community between Richmond and Williamsburg — formally requested the ouster of local Electoral Board Member Maria A. Kinney, a Republican who just joined the board in January.
The cause listed in the request was “severe dereliction of duties,” including a claim Kinney allowed a former Charles City County GOP chair, Irene Churins, to view election equipment passwords during an accuracy test.
Kinney’s two colleagues on the board — Republican Gerald Barnes and Democrat Kermit White — signed onto the letter seeking her removal, as did Registrar DeNay L. Harris, who serves in a nonpartisan role and reports to the three board members.
Documents shared with the state board accuse Kinney of disregarding election policies, battling colleagues over how to keep and publish meeting minutes and reportedly telling others she considers herself a “sovereign citizen.” That term usually refers to a staunchly anti-government movement whose members claim they’re exempt from laws they deem illegitimate.
Kinney appeared before the state elections board Tuesday to strongly deny most of the allegations while acknowledging she could be more careful about election security protocols
“I have never called myself a sovereign citizen and had to look up what it means,” Kinney said.
She went on to dispute claims that she resisted taking the oath of office and was reluctant to give her personal information to the county’s human resources department. Kinney said she took the oath and filled out the HR paperwork after clearing up scheduling and technical issues. Suggestions to the contrary, she said, are “slanderous.”
“I do not believe that it is my actions that need to be curtailed,” Kinney said.
Charles City County Electoral Board Member Maria Kinney (left) and former county GOP Chair Irene Churins (right) sat in a General Assembly hearing room as state election officials weighed allegations against them. (Graham Moomaw/Virginia Mercury)
Under Virginia’s system of election administration, local party activists nominate people to serve on city and county electoral boards that oversee elections in their communities. Judges make the appointments from lists of nominees submitted by local parties, a process that occasionally leads to ultra-partisan figures wielding power over how local elections are run.
The situation in Charles City County is the latest example of personal animosity flaring up in offices that are meant to be even-keeled and nonpartisan, with local GOP figures conducting themselves in a manner that appears to have troubled even their fellow Republicans.
Virginia law gives the party that prevailed in the most recent gubernatorial election automatic control of all local electoral boards in the state. After Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won in 2021, a new wave of GOP activists are being appointed to election oversight jobs, some of them steeped in far-right conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from former President Donald Trump.
Barnes, who also appeared at Tuesday’s state board meeting, questioned how Kinney could continue to serve on the county board when higher ups in the Republican Party of Virginia have already stripped Churins of her powers and dissolved the Charles City County GOP Committee to start anew. The Republican Party of Virginia’s 4th Congressional District Republican Committee decided May 9 to remove Churins from her position and temporarily disband the local party she once led.
Barnes also noted Kinney has already resigned as the board’s secretary over the minute-keeping dispute but is insisting on staying on as a board member.
“Who is she going to represent? Nobody,” Barnes said. “What is she going to do?”
After a 30-minute closed meeting, the state elections board chose to delay action on the matter to allow more time to gather emails and other supporting documents mentioned as the two sides gave their version of the truth.
“I think it would be very helpful to have additional information,” said state Board Chairman John M. O’Bannon, a former Republican delegate.
Those involved in the dispute also gave differing accounts of separate incidents in which law enforcement has had to get involved in election office feuds, none of which have apparently led to charges being filed.
Because local electoral board members are appointed by judges, Virginia law requires the State Board of Elections to initiate the removal process by approving a petition asking the local circuit court to make the decision final.
The letter laying out the case for Kinney’s ouster says she and Churins disrupted the county’s efforts to check its voting equipment on Jan. 18, a mandatory process known as logic and accuracy testing.
“During the completion of the L&A, Secretary Kinney wanted to input the passwords for the equipment as we were zeroing the machines,” the letter says. “As we watched, Secretary Kinney allowed Mrs. Churins to write seal numbers, serial numbers, what polling places the equipment was assigned to, and the passwords she was viewing as we were wrapping up Logic and Accuracy.”
When Barnes told Kinney she couldn’t share that information with party officials or the public, the letter alleges, Kinney “proceeded to tell him that he could not tell her what she could and could not do.”
Kinney told state officials Churins was standing behind her and she didn’t realize Churins might have been close enough to see the passwords she was entering on the machines.
“She would not have been able to see through my chest wall to know the numbers I was entering,” Kinney said. “When informed that I had made this error, I agreed that I needed to pay closer attention in the future, and that I would do just that.”
The letter from Kinney’s colleagues said her “combative behavior compromises the integrity” of upcoming elections in Charles City.
“We have a problem here, which seems to grow exponentially with each election,” Barnes wrote in his own letter to Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Rich Anderson. “The problem is the conduct and behavior of the County Republican Chair, Mrs. Irene Churins. Her inability to treat the county election team with even a modicum of respect, her blatant refusal to abide by, much less acknowledge, current Virginia electoral laws and codes, as well as her continual ‘witch hunt’ for non-existent conspiracies, are not only egregiously unethical but a reflection upon our party which simply cannot stand.”
Barnes also suggested racism might be a factor in why the registrar’s office is facing hostility from some local Republicans based on a comment about Harris and a deputy registrar he said he heard at a local GOP meeting in 2021.
“I overheard another attendee say ‘They’re both black, and we must watch these women. They came from Richmond,’” Barnes wrote in his letter. “Mrs. Churins did not address this inappropriate remark, much less shutting down the conversation’s tenor.”
Churins, who told state officials the documents shared with them were “full of lies,” strongly denied the racism charge when asked about it by The Virginia Mercury after Tuesday’s meeting.
“We’ve got more Blacks than Whites,” Churins said. “And I’ve got friends from all races.”
“It’s total bunk and not who we are,” echoed Kinney.
No one cited a direct source for the sovereign citizen accusation. Clara Belle Wheeler, a conservative election activist who previously served on the state elections board, took exception to the publication of an email suggesting she might be a source of information on things Kinney has said. That email, written by 4th District Congressional District Republican Committee Chair Carey Allen, was included in the official materials published online for the state board meeting.
“I categorically deny everything that is written in those allegations,” said Wheeler, who now serves on the Albemarle County Electoral Board and conducts training for other Republican board members around the state. “I never have used the term sovereign citizen.”
Barnes defended the claim Kinney had described herself that way by saying he had heard about it “from more than two or three people.”
Asked in an interview if she believes claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen or fraudulent, Kinney said “not in Charles City.”
“Nationally, I don’t know,” she said. “I have not really paid attention to all of the… they showed one thing where somebody brought in a box or pulled a box from under a table or something… I’m a farmer. I’ve got other busy life stuff going.”
It’s unclear when state officials plan to take up the dispute again for a final decision.
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