CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Albemarle County’s new interim registrar, Debbie Wilson, has been able to proverbially hit the ground running as her office prepares for in-person absentee voting to begin next week.
Wilson, who was Harrisonburg’s registrar for 12 years before retiring in 2020, has the experience to prepare the Albemarle office for the coming election after Lauren Eddy abruptly resigned Aug. 12. Albemarle police confirmed she’s under investigation for financial misconduct.
Wilson said she’s entered an office full of experienced, competent people who know what they’re doing, even as the deputy registrar and elections manager resigned shortly after Eddy.
Wilson said they’ve been able to promote assistant elections manager Alex Branch to elections manager, and he’s already scheduled the elections workers.
“He was the assistant elections manager, so he had learned the ropes from (Erin Davis) and he jumped in with both feet and is doing an awesome job of it,” Wilson told CvilleRightNow.
Wilson said, “old registrars never die, they just kind of move around.” She had begun working part-time in the Waynesboro elections office where registrar Lisa Jeffers is a good friend. She said she ran into Jeffers one day at TJ Maxx and Jeffers asked her what she was doing and if she’d like to work in Waynesboro part-time. Wilson was working one day a week, and more days in election season and had no plans whatsoever to do anything but that. But it was Jeffers who told her Albemarle County needed some help.
“So, that’s how I got here and I have been introduced to the staffing I have and they’re wonderful people,” Wilson said. “And then I have part-time people who have since been coming in, and they’ve all volunteered extra time, extra help, whatever to get things done. It’s a great working office, I am very, very excited.”
She said she also has a very supportive electoral board.
“They’ve been here every day, and they all have very different skills but they work together,” she said.
She said the in-person absentee voting process is up and running, having trained all their early vote people Tuesday.
“I think all of them had worked other elections, they’re all either chiefs or assistants in their polling places on Election Day,” Wilson said. “So, these are very seasoned officers of election.”
Wilson said she is only planning to be in this interim position until the election process is over in November.
“We certainly want to reassure the voters in Albemarle that everything is going to run smooth, they’re going to have a smooth election like they always have.”
