Within one year, the Virginia State Board of Elections has twice examined the work of Rockingham County’s Director of Elections and General Registrar, Lisa B. Gooden, and both times it found problems.

The first was a double count of central absentee precinct (CAP) votes in the November 5, 2024 general election. By Gooden’s own account, the error was caught by an out-of-state citizen who analyzes election data. Her office did not catch it, and neither did state election officials.

The second came on November 17, 2025. The State Board voted unanimously to cut a $9,200 campaign finance penalty her office had assessed against school board member Matt Cross to $1,000. In its decision, the board cited a “lack of communication between the General Registrar’s office and the petitioner regarding notice of penalties.” Two months earlier, Gooden had referred the same penalty to the Commonwealth’s Attorney for collection and possible criminal prosecution. Her referral letter falsely stated that Cross had already exhausted or declined his appeal, but his appeal was pending at the time.

The 2024 double count

The county’s official canvass minutes give few details. They say the final Abstract of Votes was not approved until December 10, 2024, “due to a reporting issue for post-election,” and that the revision “did not affect any contest winners.”

The statements the county submitted to the State Board say more. Writing on behalf of the Rockingham County Electoral Board, Chairman Dr. David K. McQuilkin acknowledged that “the error in question, a double counting of CAP votes, did occur and created an inaccurate report of the Rockingham County’s final election results.” He called it “not a trivial matter” and said the board’s “collective embarrassment is considerable.”

Gooden’s written statement takes responsibility. “I take responsibility for the inaccurate reporting of post-election data as I failed to let my CAP team know to separate the post-election data from mailed absentee,” she wrote. She said the figures entered matched the CAP team’s tapes, were “not falsified in any way,” and reflected “human error made unintentionally.”

She also cited the pressures on her office: a 60.1 percent rise in provisional ballots over 2020, 1,185 same-day registrations, only four workstations, and three staff changes in July and August 2024. On training, she wrote that it “was not at the forefront of my priorities” during early voting. She acknowledged that “these obstacles should not have taken precedence over training” and said she and her staff have since completed the sessions.

Gooden opened her statement by criticizing Department of Elections Commissioner Susan J. Beals for taking up the matter in open session. She called that “seemingly a deliberate and political oversight” meant to hide ELECT’s own failure to catch the error. She cited Va. Code § 2.2-3711(A)(1), the open-meetings exemption for personnel matters. That statute lets public bodies meet in closed session for those purposes, but it does not require them to.

The Electoral Board pledged three fixes:

  1. Training for CAP officers will stress, in writing, keeping pre-election CAP totals separate from post-election totals.
  2. Registrar staff training will cover the same point for preliminary reports to ELECT.
  3. The registrar will personally review pre- and post-election CAP results before each canvass.

The Matt Cross penalty

On July 18, 2025, Gooden’s office notified Cross’s 2021 School Board District 3 campaign committee of a $9,200 penalty for 11 campaign finance reports filed late or not at all, dating back to 2022. Cross’s attorney argued that many of the reports were never filed because the committee had no activity to report, and that state notices had gone to an email address Cross no longer used.

According to the State Board’s written decision, Cross filed his appeal on September 4, 2025.

Eleven days later, on September 15, the Electoral Board met with Gooden present. The draft minutes say there had been “no response to the letter” and no payment. The board voted unanimously to send the matter to the Commonwealth’s Attorney.

Gooden signed the referral letter to Commonwealth’s Attorney Marsha Garst on September 19. It stated that Cross “has already either exhausted or declined to appeal the penalty with the State Board of Elections pursuant to § 24.2-953.6.” It asked Garst to begin collection proceedings and, “if you deem it appropriate, prosecution of a Class 1 misdemeanor.” The State Board’s own record shows an appeal filed before both the meeting and the letter.

On October 16, during Cross’s reelection campaign, Gooden sent him a separate certified letter warning of a further fine of up to $500 over an amended Statement of Organization.

The November 17 hearing

The State Board heard Cross’s appeal on November 17, 2025. A video of the meeting records the board pressing Gooden on why her office let penalties pile up for nearly four years without telling Cross.

Cross’s attorney, Tolly Gwynn, said Cross had filed the late reports as soon as he learned of them. The next day, Gwynn said, the registrar fined him $9,200. He argued that seven of the 11 penalties were outside the statute of limitations. Under Va. Code § 19.2-8, a campaign finance prosecution must begin within one year of discovery and no more than three years after the violation. Gwynn also said no one had referred any of the violations to the Commonwealth’s Attorney within 90 days, as the law requires.

The board did not let Cross off easily either. One member pointed out that Cross had filed several reports and then stopped, and said, “he had to know it wasn’t just a one-time deal.” Another said that “saying that the explanation is that, ‘I wasn’t notified,'” was “not sure we think that that’s valid.”

Then a board member asked whether anyone from the Rockingham County registrar’s office could “explain why there was this gap in time in enforcement.” Gooden joined by phone.

Her first answer was about something else. She said Cross’s treasurer had reported a change effective April 16, 2023, but did not file an amended Statement of Organization until October 27, 2025. Asked what that had to do with the question, she repeated the dates.

The board member pressed again: “What prevented you all from knowing that there was an offense?” Gooden answered that “Ms. Alexander at the state had attempted to reach out to the Cross campaign, but no response was received.” She confirmed that she had been registrar the whole time.

Another member said Gooden appeared to be putting the responsibility on the state. ELECT staff answered that “the General Registrars are legally supposed to assess penalties.” Asked what she had done at the local level, Gooden said, “I followed through after I learned of the delay.” The member replied, “I don’t think you’ve answered my question.” Gooden then said she had received information in July 2025 laying out the history of Cross’s filings, beginning with a late report in October 2021.

At that point the chairman remarked, “So, you’ve got to plead ignorance.”

Gooden said she had “some records” of trying to reach the campaign. Gwynn said he had not seen any. Her September 19 letter to the Commonwealth’s Attorney had said Cross failed to pay “after being duly notified and given an extended opportunity to do so.”

A board member who is a former state senator said the first seven violations were “timed out” and that there was “no legal leg for the Commonwealth to stand on.” The board waived those seven and three more, kept the most recent $1,000 penalty, and approved the reduction unanimously. Its written decision cites the “lack of communication between the General Registrar’s office and the petitioner regarding notice of penalties.” Vice Chair Rosalyn Dance said there were “errors on both sides.”

Gooden’s public account of the result did not match the record. She told the Daily News-Record the penalty was reduced “from $9,200 to $1,500.” The signed State Board decision says $1,000.

Elections involving her son

Gooden’s son, Joshua Joseph “Josh” Gooden, is the mayor of Elkton. A Bridgewater College profile says that as a teenager he got rides to Town Council meetings from “his mom, Lisa.” Town elections in Elkton are run by Rockingham County’s election office.

Josh Gooden has run for office in the county repeatedly while his mother administered its elections. She was serving as registrar by at least 2015. He served six years on the Elkton Town Council, and state election records show him winning the mayor’s race in 2018, 2020 and 2022. He was on the ballot for mayor again in November 2024, the same election in which the county double counted CAP votes. Each mayoral race was against one opponent.

Virginia law treats this kind of relationship differently depending on the official. Under Va. Code § 24.2-106, no member of an electoral board may be the parent of a candidate for an office voted on within the board’s jurisdiction. Under § 24.2-110, the registrar may not be a candidate herself or work on a campaign, but the law says nothing about her relatives. The official who processes the ballots and reports the preliminary results in her son’s races is the one official the family-relationship rule does not cover.

Nothing in the public record shows that Gooden stepped aside from any part of administering her son’s elections.

The Electoral Board’s role

Under Va. Code § 24.2-110, the three-member Electoral Board appoints the general registrar, and it is the body that can seek her removal. So far it has stood by her. In its statement to the State Board, it said Gooden “has never given the Electoral Board cause to question her skills or her competence” and called the 2024 double count “an anomaly.”

The board also directed the Cross referral and approved minutes stating that Cross had not responded. That was after he had filed an appeal with the State Board, the same body to which the Electoral Board had just apologized for the 2024 error.

No contest winner changed because of the 2024 error, and Cross’s reports were in fact late. But in both cases, the registrar’s office made errors that others had to catch and correct.

Sources

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