Warren County GOP chairman: Printer put wrong address on flier| Nvdaily

The Warren County Republican Committee chairman says a political mailer should not have used the local voter registrar’s office location as a return address.

The flier mailed to Warren County addresses before Election Day promoted the Republican candidates and the party’s platform. The flier also showed a return address of 465 W. 15th St., Suite 800, Front Royal, VA 22630 — the location of the Warren County Voter Registrar’s Office in the Health and Human Services Complex.

Committee Chairman Robert Hupman said by phone Tuesday that the company the organization used to print the mailer put the voter registrar’s office mailing address as the return address by mistake.

“They apologized and I sent out a letter to the registrar to handle all this,” Hupman said. “Obviously, we don’t take anything lightly. I believe in fair elections. We handled it accordingly.”

The committee did not ask the company to use the registrar’s office address, Hupman said.

“(The address) didn’t even go into the proof we received (from the printer) and it just slipped through the cracks pretty much,” Hupman said. “It was a human error.

“We had nothing to do with it,” Hupman went on to say. “It was just a mishap on the mailer. Somehow that address was in some old records from the last years and it popped up or something.”

The printing company should have used the committee’s post office box as the return address, Hupman said.

Asked if he thought the inclusion of the voter registrar’s address on the mailing might have sent the wrong message to voters, Hupman said:

“I don’t think it was any issues,” Hupman said. “I just spoke with everyone that was, you know, accounted for and what happened and I feel like it was handled well.

“It was never … nothing with the Warren County Republican Committee,” Hupman said. “There was no ill intentions toward that. Like I said, it wasn’t even on our end and we didn’t have anything to do with it.”

On Tuesday, Carol L. Tobin, Warren County Director of Elections, and General Registrar Carol L. Tobin, said by telephone that she was made aware of the flier as well as the address. Tobin asked questions to Virginia Department of Elections. She said that they would investigate any complaints about the flier.

Andrea Gaines, external affairs manager with the Virginia Department of Elections, said in an email Tuesday that Chapter 24.2, of the Code of Virginia, “does not address return addresses on political advertisements.”