Voters approaching the Vienna Community Center around noon on Election Day, Nov. 7, scarcely could have missed School Board candidate Harry Jackson’s video-playing black panel truck.
The vehicle, parked not far from where candidates and their supporters were making last-minute pitches to voters, played on a continuous loop a negative campaign ad accusing School Board incumbent Melanie Meren (Hunter Mill District) of multiple failings.
But some voters and pollsters took umbrage with the truck’s proximity to the polling place. At one point, election officials emerged from the community center with what appeared to be a 40-foot-long rope, which would demarcate the minimum distance from which candidates and their backers needed to stay back from the facility’s entrance.
The officials worked in tandem to measure off about four lengths of the rope before reaching the truck, which meant the vehicle was in violation of Virginia Code Section § 24.2-605.
The section reads: “Notwithstanding any contrary statute or ordinance of a county, city, or town, except for school purposes or in an emergency, no loudspeaker shall be used within 300 feet of a polling place on an election day. Any person violating this section shall be guilty of a Class 4 misdemeanor.”
Following complaints from voters and pollsters, Vienna police dispatched officers to the site around 12:24 p.m. to investigate the situation. Officers informed the truck’s operators of the state code’s provisions and they subsequently moved the vehicle farther away.
The video ad’s message accused Meren of discriminating against Asian students, opposing a merit-based education system, allowing books depicting child pornography and pedophilia in school libraries, shutting down schools during the pandemic while sending her own children to private institutions, and neglecting the needs of special-education, Hispanic and African-American children. While it did include some actual audio clips of Meren speaking, an actor’s voice mocked her in other segments.
It did not matter in the end. According to unofficial results, Democratically endorsed Meren won another four-year term with 28,809 votes, far outdistancing the 10,963 votes obtained by GOP-supported Jackson.