It
turns out that Joe Biden's margin of victory over Donald Trump in 2020 was 3,975 votes greater than previously known.
In 2022, Virginia's new Attorney General, Jason Miyares, a Republican, created an Election Integrity Unit, as he had promised to do during the 2021 campaign in an effort to appeal to right-wing election deniers. The unit found evidence to support just one criminal prosecution, but it seemed serious: in 2022, they charged Michelle White, the registrar of Prince William County in northern Virginia with two felonies -- corrupt conduct and making a false statement -- and one misdemeanor: willful neglect of duty. At the time, the unit provided very few public details about the charges beyond saying that they pertained to the 2020 election and they didn't affect the outcome of any race in that election.
But last month the felony charges were dropped after the unit got new evidence and a witness revised testimony, and
last week the midemeanor charge was dropped too.
There were a number of errors in the Prince William count, but in the end it seems they were not deliberate.
In a statement, the county's current registrar, Eric Olsen, emphasized that the mistakes did not come close to affecting the outcome of any race and “did not consistently favor one party or candidate but were likely due to a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment, and human error.”
In the presidential race, the county mistakenly shorted Biden by 1,648 votes, and overreported Trump's count by 2,327 votes. The 3,975-vote error in the margin of victory was immaterial in a contest that Biden won by 450,000 votes in Virginia and by more than 60,000 votes in Prince William County.
In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mark Warner was shorted by 1,589 votes and Republican Daniel Gade was shorted by 107 votes. Warner won statewide by more than 500,000 votes.
And in a U.S. House race, Republican Robert Wittman was shorted by 293 votes. He won by more than 80,000.