A civil suit filed in Buckingham Circuit Court–which involved two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by Buckingham County Supervisor Thomas Jordan Miles III–came to an end on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.
Acting in the spirit of cooperation and in allowing the Electoral Board and Interim Registrar to focus and prepare for November’s elections and hire a permanent Registrar and Director of Elections, Miles, who filed suit as a private citizen, not in his role as a County Supervisor, asked the court to dismiss the suit.
“While the responses to my requests could be considered insufficient, I want to put this suit behind us to afford the Electoral Board the time and energy it needs to be fully prepared for the November election and stabilize itself and its operations, all of which are essential to democracy in Buckingham,” Miles said.
One of the FOIA responses proved a peddled claim by the leader of the Buckingham County Republican Party that 21 percent of early votes in the November 2022 election were cast by non-residents was false. As alluded to in Buckingham Circuit Court today, the response to each point in the FOIA request was “the requested records could not be found or do not exist.”
The documents Miles requested included copies of all applications for absentee ballots in the Nov. 8, 2022 election that were determined before the absentee ballot was sent out to have been fraudulent or defective, absentee ballots were cast in the November election that were issued improperly or that were based on fraudulent applications for absentee ballots, and public records that mention such claims.
None could be found, according to an email from the Interim Registrar.
“We knew all along that what was being spread was nothing but another one of this small faction’s fairy tales,” said Miles, who sued the Electoral Board over mishandling his FOIA requests and open government requests. “The responses by the new Interim Registrar prove that this is more fake news that the Chairman of the Republican Party in Buckingham wants people to believe as she leads the chaos that continues.”
“Dear Buckingham County Republican Committee and Friends,” Buckingham Republican Party Chairman Ramona Christian wrote in an email, which included the press release regarding the 21 percent falsehood. “I just received this article from the EPEC, The Election Process Education Corporation. I thought this was very interesting as part of it concerns our own Maynard Ritchie’s School Board election. At our meeting next week, we will discuss it further.”
The press release began stating that “Electoral Process Education Corporation (EPEC), a non-profit 501c (3) that promotes voter participation and public education of election technology, has found that 21% of the early (absentee) ballots cast in Virginia’s Buckingham County came from non-residents of the county.”
It continues, “Given the margin of victory of 9 votes for a School Board race, had the 356 nonresident votes been rejected to vote in their own county, it is reasonable to ask how the ballots were allowed to be counted.”
EPEC stated it “reached out to the Buckingham County Board of Directors for comment,” though there is no such entity.
“This is simply another example of the efforts to mindlessly degrade our open, free, and fair elections process in Buckingham County,” said Miles. To my friends and neighbors, just because you hear or see it does not mean it is true. Do your research and check the facts. Just as this small faction pushed out former Registrar Lindsey Taylor and pulled in lies, they will continue to perpetuate falsehoods until we call them out.”
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Thomas Jordan Miles III
District Four Supervisor (Maysville)
434-390-7023
13170 West James Anderson Highway
PO Box 188
Buckingham, Virginia 23921
Maysville District Supervisor Thomas Jordan Miles III 
Thank you for this succinct and clear explanation. I’m new to Buckingham County politics, and eager to learn. I’m in district one…wish there was news for this area.
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