McCain T-shirt case dropped

A Madison County woman will not be prosecuted for wearing a political T-shirt to the polls during last November’s election.

Brightwood resident Leigh Purdum was arrested about a month after she refused to cover her John McCain T-shirt Nov. 4, 2008 at her Brightwood precinct polling place.

The American Civil Liberties Union – which, last December, appointed four lawyers to defend the case – had said it believed Purdum was the only person arrested as a result of the Virginia State Board of Elections’ decision to ban political clothing at polling locations.

In February, the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill, which would discount the ban, allowing people to wear shirts, hats, buttons, stickers or other apparel containing a candidate’s name or political slogans inside polling places.

Following news of the progress of the legislation, Madison County Commonwealth’s Attorney George Webb III met with the county’s electoral board – whose secretary Tommy Tanner had initially filed the complaint, according to previous reports.

“That’s when the decision was made not to proceed, not to prosecute,” Webb told The Eagle March 23.

Although the bill has not yet been signed into law by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Webb “can’t imagine” Kaine will refuse to sign the bill, he said.

“I would have had a real hard time getting a judge to convict realizing what the General Assembly had done,” he added.

Although the state law prohibiting campaign materials within 40 feet of a polling place on Election Day had been on the books for years, in October 2008, state board of elections officials ruled “campaign materials” to include T-shirts, buttons, pins, stickers, hats and other materials supporting the election or defeat of a particular candidate or issue.

Last Election Day, when Purdum approached her polling place wearing a T-shirt featuring the word “McCain,” Brightwood poll workers told her the shirt would need to be covered in order for her to vote, according to previous reports. Purdum refused, and was allowed to vote, although those at the poll informed her that a complaint would be forwarded to the commonwealth’s attorney.

Madison County Electoral Board Secretary Tommy Tanner had said he was only following state law and his obligation to the electoral board when he took the complaint against Purdum to Webb, according to reports in December.

After first discussing the issue with the commonwealth’s attorney, Tanner said he decided to get the warrant for the Brightwood resident’s arrest “because it was a blatant violation of state law,” a December article stated.

Tanner had also said that poll workers took offense to a letter by Purdum published in The Eagle following the incident and felt it made them “look like they were the bad guys,” according to the article.

“In light of the legislators recent action to correct the misinterpreting of [election laws] by the electoral board in Richmond, it’s pretty clear the policy of the commonwealth is to allow people to wear anything they want to the polls,” one of Purdum’s defense attorneys, Steven Rosenfield of Charlottesville, said Monday.

“At the time she was charged, it was against the law,” Webb told The Eagle earlier this week. “I believe the intention of the people was that that provision would be more lenient.”

Both Purdum and her attorney said that it was wrong for the charge to have been brought against her in the first place, they said.

“I am an ordinary citizen who has exercised my rights twice in Madison and have been successful after having to fight for these rights,” she said in an e-mail response Monday.

In May 2008, Purdum earned statewide acclaim from an open government group after winning a bitterly contested Freedom of Information case against her former boss, Madison County Sheriff Erik Weaver. That case is set to be heard on general district court appeal at 9:30 a.m. Monday, April 20 in Madison County Circuit Court.

Purdum believes that the fact that she was the only person in Virginia to be charged for the polling place crime, “shows Madison holds its grudges,” Purdum told The Eagle Monday.

“People who use their position of power to intimidate individuals who exercise their rights is corruption in its truest form,” she said in an e-mail.
Last December, Weaver had said that besides his office’s attempt to serve Purdum a warrant for her arrest for “prohibited activity at polls,” the sheriff’s office was not involved in this case.

Purdum had been scheduled to appear Dec. 16, 2008 in Madison County General District Court, but her case was continued for scheduling earlier this week, on Tuesday, March 24.

The defense had been hopeful that by this time a separate federal case on the constitutionality of the matter – which is still pending – would have made Madison County’s case against Purdum moot, according to previous reports.

Webb told The Eagle Monday of his plans to notify the judge of his decision not to prosecute the case in court Tuesday.