The Roanoke County registrar rejected election registration materials submitted by a longtime county school board member in May, citing “major defects” in his petition pages.
Tim Greenway, current member of the Roanoke County School Board, first submitted his petition pages to get on the ballot on May 24. School board candidates must submit a petition signed by 125 qualified voters to be eligible for election.
Director of Elections and General Registrar Anna Cloeter notified Greenway of issues with the circulator affidavits and notarization on each page, and Greenway returned the pages with corrections May 27.
Greenway
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However, on May 30, Cloeter sent Greenway a letter informing him of existing “major defects” with the petition pages and her decision to reject them. On several pages, Greenway signed the circulator affidavit and dated it May 15, while many of the signatures on the petition pages are dated May 19.
“The vast majority of the dates listed next to the voter signatures on your petitions post-date the dates listed by you and your notary on the back of each form,” she wrote in the letter, “which means that all voter signatures affixed to your petitions after the date on which they were signed by a notary are rendered invalid.”
Greenway has since collected 125 more signatures in a fresh petition, and is qualified to run in the Nov. 4 general election. However, Cloeter said she consulted with the county attorney’s office on the basis of the rejected petition pages, stating that the “egregious defects” left her no choice.
“The dates, and the failure to actually re-notarize, that is a problem that I couldn’t get past with the original pages,” she said in an interview.
Roanoke County General Registrar Anna Cloeter says she consulted with the county attorney’s office on the basis of the rejected petition pages, stating that the “egregious defects” left her no choice.
The Roanoke Times, File 2020
Roanoke County declined to comment about the case being referred to law enforcement, and the Virginia State Police said it has no comment.
Cloeter continued in the letter that the circulator affidavit seems to have been photocopied onto each page, meaning that it could not have been signed in front of a notary, which is required by Virginia Law. Instructions on each individual petition page state that the affidavit must be completed and signed in front of a notary, and further instructions for petition pages specify that all signatures must be originals, she said.
“During one of our conversations about the issues with your petition pages, you stated that your signature dates were incorrect because you ‘photocopied the petitions before circulating’ them and that your notary must have simply ‘copied the wrong dates’ when he completed his portion of the forms,” Cloeter said in the letter to Greenway.
When the pages were returned with corrections to Cloeter on May 27, changes to the dates on the affidavits and notarizations were made in only one type of pen and ink, and Greenway was the only person who signed the papers again, she said. The notary did not re-sign their portion of the form with the date correction.
“You admitted that the other individual who circulated petitions for you did not reappear in front of a notary and did not re-sign their Circulator Affidavit in front of the notary, which is unacceptable,” she said in the letter.
Additionally, Cloeter cited at least three instances among the petition pages in which one single voter appeared to sign for both themselves and their spouse. Instructions on the pages inform signers that their signatures must be their own, and any willfully false statement or entry on the form “shall constitute the crime of election fraud and be punishable as a Class 5 Felony.”
The affidavit also requires the circulator to confirm that they have witnessed the signature of each person who signed the petition.
Cloeter, who has been registrar in Roanoke County for nine years, said she has never seen a petition with issues like this before. Greenway is not a new candidate, she said; he first ran for school board in 2015, then again in 2017 and 2021. When he ran for the Board of Supervisors primary in 2024, he also had to collect 125 valid petition signatures. The process has not changed since he first ran, she said.
“I find it concerning that someone who is interested in seeking office would have difficulty fulfilling such plainly outlined obligations ballot access, much less reply, ‘is it really that serious?’ when questioned about the issues I mentioned above,” Cloeter said in her letter to Greenway.
In response to a May 28 email from Cloeter informing him of existing issues with the corrected petition, Greenway said he’s “unfortunately clueless here.”
“I’m sorry for the confusion but obviously we didn’t make the mistakes intentionally on the notary and dates of our signatures. We witnessed every signature on each form,” he said in the email.
In a statement to The Roanoke Times on Sunday, Greenway apologized for the mistake, which he said was “totally his fault.”
“What is absolutely true, is that I made an innocent mistake on the portion of the form where MY signature and date go on the form for the affidavits for signatures I obtained,” he said.
Greenway was required to obtain 125 fresh signatures on petition pages that were not signed and dated by the circulator and notary prior to the date on which voters signed them.
“I was not pleased, as every signature I obtained was done so in my presence, and I will attest to that very fact today. The error was in MY signature and dates on the forms to be notarized. Either way it was my mistake, again 100%,” he said.
Greenway said that he is only running in order to give back to the community.
“If this news being made public is supposed to embarrass me or discourage me, it is doing neither. It is actually making me more determined to continue seeking equality for the Vinton District (Vinton, East Roanoke Co, Bonsack, and Mt. Pleasant) with respect to education and our educational facilities,” he said in the statement.
Reed
Amber Reed
Amber Reed, a teacher at Westside Elementary School in Roanoke, is running against Greenway for the Vinton District seat on the Roanoke County School Board this fall.
In April, two-time Roanoke City Council candidate Jamaal Jackson was indicted by a city grand jury on four felony counts of making a false statement on an election form.
Jackson
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Former Roanoke City Registrar Andrew Cochran received an email tip from someone who “raised serious allegations about the integrity of some of the signatures on Mr. Jackson’s petitions.” Jackson’s jury trial is set for Sept. 22.
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