Stafford voters sue to kick House candidate off ballot over residency dispute

by Markus Schmidt, Virginia Mercury
September 24, 2025

Three Stafford County voters are asking a judge to remove Democratic House of Delegates nominee Stacey Carroll from the ballot, arguing she doesn’t actually live in the district where she registered to vote and is running for office. 

The petition, filed in Stafford County Circuit Court, contends Carroll lives at a longtime home in House District 23 while claiming a different address in neighboring House District 64 to qualify for the race.

In the complaint brought under a Virginia statute that allows voters to object to another person’s registration, petitioners Stephen Edward Schwartz, Judith Anne Parker and Juliet McGee Schweiter allege Carroll changed her voter registration on Feb. 5, 2025, to an address on Pinkerton Court in District 64 but “continues to reside” on Bismark Drive in District 23. The latter, which includes parts of Stafford and Prince William counties, is currently represented by Del. Candi Mundon King, D-Prince William. 

The filing lists the Bismark Drive house as a property Carroll has owned and occupied since 2018. It asks the court to hear the case on an expedited basis, cancel Carroll’s District 64 registration and direct state officials to decertify her candidacy and remove her from the ballot.

The petition says the Pinkerton Court property “is owned by Jared Harmon and Crystal Harmon,” and that the Harmons still live there. 

The voters say their challenge rests on months of observation and documentary indicators they argue show Carroll never moved. 

“Carroll is physically present at 71 Bismark Drive on a consistent basis,” the petition alleges, adding that her “primary vehicle, a white 2017 Cadillac Escalade, is consistently parked” at the Bismark Drive address “for significant periods of the day and overnight.” 

The filing also asserts she “continues to receive mail” at Bismark Drive, “pays the electricity bill” there, and that her certified public accountant license lists Bismark as her residence. Conversely, “Motor vehicles belonging to Carroll and her immediate family have not been observed” at the Pinkerton Court address, and the Harmons’ vehicles are regularly there, the petition says.

Under Virginia law, voters must be residents of the precinct where they vote, a concept that “requires both domicile and place of abode,” according to Article II, Section 1 of the state Constitution quoted in the suit. 

State statute similarly defines domicile as a person’s primary home requiring presence and an intent to remain, and the petition cites case law that “there must be both act and intention in order to acquire new legal residence.” The burden to show the change is on the registrant, the filing says, quoting the Supreme Court of Virginia’s Kegley v. Johnson decision in 1966.

Because the constitution also requires would-be delegates to be residents of the district they seek to represent, the petitioners argue, Carroll “is not qualified to be a delegate from House of Delegates District 64” if she is not lawfully registered there. 

The filing says notice of the petition was provided to Carroll and the state Democratic Party on Aug. 29.

Carroll, a military veteran who is challenging Del. Paul Milde, R-Stafford, pushed back forcefully on the lawsuit, calling it an attack not just on her but on military families more broadly. 

“The accusations about where I live are false and insulting to every veteran and military family who knows what it means to move in service to our country,” she said in an email. She added that she is “a proud resident of House District 64” and remains “committed to serving this community.” 

Carroll argued that questioning her residency was an affront to those who relocate for service, saying, “To suggest that military families don’t belong in the communities they serve dishonors that sacrifice.”

The lawsuit names as respondents Stafford County General Registrar Anna Hash, the Virginia State Board of Elections, the Department of Elections, and Carroll. The venue is proper, the petition says, because all three petitioners are Stafford County voters and Carroll “is on the registration records in Stafford County.”

Residency disputes surface periodically in Virginia, particularly after redistricting. 

In 2023, several Chesterfield County residents challenged Democratic Sen. Ghazala Hashmi’s eligibility, arguing she hadn’t met residency requirements in the newly drawn 15th Senate District. A Chesterfield judge dismissed the challenge after a hearing, and reporting at the time detailed the petitioners’ surveillance-style claims about vehicle movements and time spent at a prior family home — paralleling some of the allegations seen in the Carroll petition. 

Earlier, in 2011, voters used the same Virginia Code § 24.2-431 process to challenge the registration of House candidate David Ramadan in Loudoun County’s newly created 87th District. The court opinion and contemporaneous reporting show petitioners argued Ramadan lacked proper domicile in the district.

The legal standards the Stafford petition leans on are longstanding. In Kegley v. Johnson, the Virginia Supreme Court emphasized that a voter changing residence must pair a physical move with intent to remain, and the registrant bears the burden to prove both.

The petition here quotes that principle and also cites the State Board of Elections’ regulatory definition of “domicile” as “a person’s primary home, the place where a person dwells and which [s]he considers to be the center of h[er] domestic, social, and civil life.”

In the Stafford case, the petitioners list a dozen factual assertions they say support their claim that Bismark Drive remains Carroll’s true home — ranging from overnight parking patterns and household trash production to utility payments and mail delivery — and assert “no activity has been observed” at Bismark Drive “that is consistent with a change in residency, such as a moving truck, packing, or other similar activities.” 

At the Pinkerton address, they allege, “no activity has been observed … that is consistent with a change in residency.”

The filing also argues the petitioners have a “constitutional and statutory right to be represented in the House of Delegates by a resident” of their district and that Carroll’s alleged misregistration infringes that right. 

While each case turns on its facts, Virginia’s press and courts have noted these fights often hinge on documentary breadcrumbs and ordinary-life details that show where a candidate actually lives. 

The Mercury has previously examined how residency and redistricting rules can scramble political maps and candidacies after lines are redrawn, noting that the state’s requirement that legislators reside in the districts they represent has added “intrigue” to election cycles.

The Stafford petition does not specify a hearing date but asks for expedited consideration under the election code. If the court agrees with the petitioners, it could cancel Carroll’s registration at the Pinkerton address and order her decertified as a candidate in District 64. 

If the court finds Carroll established domicile in District 64 and abandoned the Bismark Drive domicile, the case would be dismissed — similar to how the Hashmi challenge ended in 2023.

Residency objections during election cycles are typically handled promptly given looming timelines.

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