Virginia County Admits 2020 Vote-Count Error ... In Trump's Favor

MANASSAS, Va. — A northern Virginia county is acknowledging that it underreported President Joe Biden’s margin of victory over Donald Trump there in the 2020 presidential election by about 4,000 votes, the first detailed accounting of errors that came to light in 2022 as part of a criminal case.

The admission Thursday from the Prince William County Office of Elections comes a week after prosecutors from the Virginia Attorney General’s office dropped charges against the county’s former registrar, Michele White.

Counts were also off in races for the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, though by lesser margins.

In a statement, the county’s current registrar, Eric Olsen, emphasized that the mistakes did not come close to affecting the outcome of any race and “did not consistently favor one party or candidate but were likely due to a lack of proper planning, a difficult election environment, and human error.”

In the presidential race, the county mistakenly shorted Biden by 1,648 votes, and overreported Trump’s count by 2,327 votes. The 3,975-vote error in the margin of victory was immaterial in a contest that Biden won by 450,000 votes in Virginia and by more than 60,000 votes in Prince William County.

In the U.S. Senate race, Democrat Mark Warner was shorted by 1,589 votes and Republican Daniel Gade was shorted by 107 votes. Warner won statewide by more than 500,000 votes.

And in a U.S. House race, Republican Robert Wittman was shorted by 293 votes. He won by more than 80,000.

The details released Thursday were the first extensive response about the errors since White was initially charged in 2022 with corrupt conduct, making a false statement and neglect of duty. Prosecutors from the office of Republican Attorney