Election Day In Ashburn: Party Volunteer Dispute, Maskless Voters

Last updated at 5:45 p.m.

ASHBURN, VA — Election Day 2020 arrived in Ashburn, with voters coming out to vote in the presidential election, and also cast a ballot in the 10th Congressional District. Only minor disputes were reported to election officials.

On the ballot in Ashburn and across Loudoun County are the presidential election, U.S. Senate and the 10th Congressional District race. Voters also are casting ballots for public school, public safety, parks and recreation and transportation bonds. Two state constitutional amendments are also on the ballot.

At a voting station in Ashburn, a dispute occurred before the precinct opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday between Democratic and Republican Party volunteers who had arrived to hand out sample ballots and provide literature to voters.

Both a Democratic Party volunteer at Dominion Trail Elementary School just off Ashburn Village Boulevard, which was serving as a voting station, and the chief of the Republican Party contingent complained to the election precinct captain about the incident.

The precinct captain told Patch that the Democratic volunteer complained to him that Republican volunteers who showed up after her had tried to place their tent over the chair she had set up in an area across a driveway from the entrance to the school where voters entered.

The Democratic volunteer also told the precinct captain that the Republican volunteers called her derogatory names, including a “pig” and a “Karen.”

About 20 minutes later, a volunteer with the Republican Party went inside the precinct to complain about the Democratic volunteer nailing a Democratic Party sign on county property — a wooden school sign near where the political parties were setting up.

The head of the Republican contingent also told the election precinct captain the Democrats were trying to block their signs.

“It was going back and forth,” said the precinct captain, who plans to turn in the incident report to Loudoun election headquarters after he shuts down the precinct later Tuesday night.

The Republican precinct captain, Barbara Murphy, told Patch that she had complained to the Loudoun election precinct captain that the Democratic volunteer had nailed a party sign to the county property.

In response to the name-calling claim, Murphy said that one of the Republican volunteers told the Democratic volunteer “not to be so piggerly” by placing a large number of Democratic Party signs in the area where the parties were planning to set up camp for the day. She did not call the Democratic volunteer a “pig,” according to Murphy.

“There were some more words back and forth and another lady who was here said, ‘Oh, don’t be a Karen,’ not ‘you are Karen,'” Murphy recalled.

The Democrats filed the report first about “us being hostile,” she said. “So I went in to file something about the sign being nailed to the post because that’s not legal and to clarify what was really said.”

Murphy said she does not remember their red tent being put on top of the Democratic Party volunteer’s chair when they first arrived.

Another Republican volunteer, who arrived at the school around noon, said the interactions between the parties’ volunteers had been “absolutely cordial” in the time he had been there.

As of 3:30 p.m., the precinct captain also said there were only two voters who had refused to wear masks upon entering the large room where the voting was taking place.

He asked them to wait in the hallway and brought them a ballot where they filled it out. The two men came back in a door where other election workers and voters had vacated to run their ballots through a scanner.

“One of the guys said he had a mask but just didn’t want to wear it,” the election precinct captain said.

Both of the men who did not want to wear masks were “cordial,” according to the precinct captain. “There was no yelling or screaming about having to wear a mask in order to enter the room.”

In the 10th Congressional District, Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D) is running for re-election against Aliscia Andrews (R).

Wexton, the incumbent, believes that the most pressing issue right now is getting this virus under control and supporting our families and small businesses in need.

Andrews, Wexton’s Republican opponent, contends that the “coronavirus lockdowns have devastated businesses in Virginia’s 10th and across America.”

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Here are the bond questions on the ballot in Loudoun:

Public schools bonds
Shall the County of Loudoun, Virginia contract a debt and issue its general obligation capital improvement bonds in the maximum principal amount of $123,755,000?

Public safety bonds
Shall the County of Loudoun, Virginia contract a debt and issue its general obligation capital improvement bonds in the maximum principal amount of $29,516,000?

Parks and recreation bonds
Shall the County of Loudoun, Virginia contract a debt and issue its general obligation capital improvement bonds in the maximum principal amount of $3,825,000?

Transportation bonds
Shall the County of Loudoun, Virginia contract a debt and issue its general obligation capital improvement bonds in the maximum principal amount of $151,210,000?

Stay tuned to this post throughout the day for live updates from the ground as well as election results as they start rolling in Tuesday night. And check back on this story Wednesday morning for more updates.

For more information, visit the Loudoun County Voter Registrar's website.