Mejias and McQuinn
The campaign of Democrat Alex Mejias, who is challenging Del. Delores L. McQuinn, D-Richmond, in Tuesday's primary for the House of Delegates in the 70th District, called police to several precincts in Richmond and North Chesterfield.
Robin Logsdon, the Mejias campaign manager, said poll watchers with the Mejias campaign saw McQuinn workers handing out literature within 40 feet of the precinct entrances, which could be illegal. But the city's registrar says the measurement doesn't always start at the door to the building - sometimes it begins inside the building, so election workers outside may appear to be within 40 feet of an entrance but aren't breaking the law.
Logsdon said the Mejias campaign asked election workers to denote the 40-foot zone with either chalk or tape because the zone was not demarcated at Richmond precincts. In several cases, the McQuinn workers stayed within 40 feet of the entrance even after election workers told them to move, Logsdon said, so he told his campaign to call police.
Election workers were provided with tape before voting began.
Liz Denison, a Mejias supporter, wore a campaign shirt to vote at Fourth Baptist Church. She said a woman with a McQuinn shirt told her she wasn’t allowed to vote with the Mejias shirt on.
“I was a little tense. I didn’t know if I was allowed to wear the shirt or not,” Denison said. “It really made me second guess if I could go in there.”
No one stopped her from voting, and on her way out the same woman again told her it was illegal. Denison replied that no one stopped her and there was a police officer inside. Another woman then took Denison’s picture.
The Mejias campaign called the state Department of Elections, the Richmond general registrar and a Democratic Party voter protection hotline asking for assistance.
J. Kirk Showalter, Richmond's general registrar, said campaign workers were allowed to be within 40 feet of the entrance at Fourth Baptist Church. That's because the entrance is so close to the road that elections workers are allowed to measure the 40 feet from inside the building, she said.
"State code says 40 feet from the entrance to the polling place. It doesn’t say the building," Showalter said. So therefore, she said, the McQuinn workers at Fourth Baptist Church were not in violation of the law.
J.J. Minor, McQuinn’s son and the chairman of the Richmond City Democratic Committee, said the Mejias campaign simply wanted to get a story in the newspaper and denied that any McQuinn precinct workers had set up within 40 feet of an entrance.
Minor said it was the Mejias campaign that was doing the harassing by filming McQuinn workers.
“We’re campaigning and we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” he said. “Like Michelle Obama said, when they’re going low, we’re going high.”
Some of the bad blood between the two camps stems from a burglary and vandalism at the Mejias campaign office in Church Hill in late May.
Mejias issued a news release saying there was no way to know if it was political. McQuinn’s backers bristled at the idea that anyone would think she or her campaign were involved.
