Not-So-Super Tuesday: RA Board Elections Kick Off, Predictably, With A Software Glitch, But At Least Most Races Are Contested

If you were an Eager Election Beaver and tried to vote for your favorite candidates in this year's Reston Association Board of Directors election when the (electronic) polls opened on Monday, you'll have to try again. A wacky, sitcom-like error voided all votes cast electronically on March 2. Give us some face-saving blockquote, BFFs at the RA:

Due to a technical error by Intelliscan, all previously submitted votes that were cast on Monday, March 2 have been cleared. Intelliscan wants to ensure that the integrity of the Reston Association’s election process is kept in place and that RA members receive the correct ballot for their property location.

People give the RA a hard time about being technically inept, but we'd like to point out that this is a big improvement over last year, when a bunch of paper ballots got screwed up, forcing an equally embarrassing kerfuffle. So, progress!

Of course, we learned of this latest problem the same day we found out that another, unrelated technical glitch has forced the RA to extend its deadline for paying our annual assessments through the end of this month. If only we had known this before handing our dog-earred check to a uniformed federal agent last week, we could have shorted the stocks of RA's technology providers with that $700 over the next month and made a killing!

But we digress. The good news is that after last year's uncontested slate, two of the three seats up for grabs and accessible to us Common Restonians this year are actually contested. (Even the fourth race, open only to slumlords apartment owners, has two candidates). That's good, as there's been a bit of activity round these here parts of late, making the fact that people are willing to run for what is a thankless job all the more important.

The candidates are:

At- Large Seat (3-year term)
Kerri Bouie
Robert T. Petrine

At-Large Seat (1-year term)
Paul Berry
Sarah Selvaraj-Dsouza

Hunters Woods/Dogwood District Seat (3-year term)
Caren Anton (unopposed)

Apartment Owners' Seat (3-year term)
Jennifer Sunshine Jushchuk
Mike Collins

To learn more about the candidates that us mere mortals can vote for, click on the video above. You can also read the official statements of all the candidates here or watch the full video of the candidates forum held last week.

The geriatric day-glo rave community groups focused on Reston development are paying close attention. In endorsing Petrine and Selvaraj-Dsouza for their respective contested seats, the Coalition for a Planned Reston says:

The Reston Association Board of Directors election will bring new voices to the Board—voices that will have a significant say in the upcoming review of the Reston Master Plan that was recently announced by Fairfax County Supervisor Walter Alcorn. The future growth of Reston will be forever impacted by the review, particularly in the PRC, the established residential neighborhoods outside of the Transit Station Areas.

Rescue Reston has posted position statements from all candidates about protecting both of Reston's golf courses on its own website.

The RA elections run through April 3. We're always terrified that these elections won't meet the required quorum, increasing the odds of having to redo the election at increased expense (three guesses who winds up footing the bill for that), so do you duty to your plastic fantastic planned community and vote, the end.