Virginia elections commissioner rejects complaint from Sen. Amanda Chase

A post-election complaint filed by Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, has no basis in state law and won’t lead to the type of recount or audit sought by Chase, according to a formal response Tuesday from Virginia Elections Commissioner Susan Beals.

Beals — an appointee of Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin who once worked as an aide to Chase — indicated that Chesterfield County Registrar Missy Vera followed the law when she gave the Chesterfield GOP an opportunity to send an observer for the testing of ballot scanning machines used for early voting. Chase has been disputing her primary loss to former Republican state Sen. Glen Sturtevant on the basis that the Chesterfield GOP selected a Sturtevant campaign staffer as its observer for that machine test.

“The general registrar has no authority over who the Republican or Democratic parties select in any given contest as their representative or if a representative is present at all,” wrote Beals, who leads the Virginia Department of Elections.