Last remaining charge dropped against Virginia elections official
MANASSAS, Va. — Prosecutors have dropped the last remaining charges against a Northern Virginia election official accused of misconduct related to the 2020 election.
A judge on Monday formally dismissed a willful neglect of duty charge against Michele White, the former clerk in Prince William County, a suburb outside the nation's capital, after prosecutors requested her dismissal.
The most serious charges against White had already been dismissed. The Virginia attorney general's office said it was forced to drop charges of corrupt conduct and making a false statement because a key witness had revised their testimony.
White was indicted in 2022, and Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares' office never detailed publicly or in court filings exactly what White did wrong. Court records only generally indicated that the charges were related to the 2020 election results, and county officials said when White was charged alone that the alleged discrepancies in vote totals would not have affected the outcome of any race.
Assistant Attorney General James Herring declined comment on the case after Monday's hearing.
White's attorney, Zachary Stafford, said after the dismissal that the government's case boiled down to a hodgepodge of complaints “and the underlying theme was that Ms. White was bad at her job.”
He said the allegations ranged from the trivial — that she had moved her office to another building — to a serious allegation that she had reported incorrect results in the presidential race from the county's central absentee district. Stafford said the claim was “subsequently refuted by a Commonwealth witness.”
“The evidence is clear that Ms. White committed no crime during her tenure as a Prince William County clerk, and the Attorney General's office wisely dropped the charges,” Stafford said in a written statement. “This process has been traumatic for Ms. White, and today's discharge is just the first step toward recovery from that trauma. Ms. White was a dedicated public servant and the evidence shows that she delivered accurate elections in 2020.”
The case against White is the only criminal prosecution brought to date by a special Election Integrity Unit that Miyares created in 2022, with as many as 20 attorneys assigned to the unit.
“During the 2021 campaign, I pledged to work to increase transparency and strengthen trust in our state elections. It should be easy to vote and hard to cheat. The Election Integrity Unit will work to help restore confidence in our democratic process across the Commonwealth,” Miyares said when the unit was formed.
In White's case, prosecutors insinuated that the case failed because a witness in the county elections office “conveniently” changed his testimony to the detriment of the government's case.
During Monday's hearing, Judge Carroll Weimer asked whether the government was suggesting there were “shenanigans” that caused the government's case to collapse.
Herring claimed that he considered some of the witnesses' revisions to their testimony to be “convenient,” but said he had no reason to believe White was responsible for those revisions.
White's attorney disputes that the witness's testimony was inconsistent.