Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Incumbent Ware overcomes opponent
The 11th District delegate defeated Martin Jeffrey and will face Republican Troy Bird in the fall.
The Roanoke Times
File January Del. Onzlee Ware, D-Roanoke, listens during a General Assembly session. He won by a better than 2-to-1 margin in Tuesday's primary.
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Incumbent Del. Onzlee Ware fended off a series of technical and legal challenges to his candidacy to win the Democratic nomination Tuesday for his 11th District seat in the House of Delegates.
Ware, a 55-year-old lawyer who has held the post since 2003, overcame a challenge from Martin Jeffrey, a 47-year-old best known for his years as an outspoken activist and past president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Ware won by a better than 2-to-1 margin, giving up only one of 25 precincts.
Ware said Tuesday night he believes the results say that "the overwhelming majority in the 11th District think I'm doing a good job."
"They may not agree all the time with all my decisions, but they trust me to do my job with them in mind."
He also thanked "all the hardworking volunteers, who made numerous phone calls and spent so much time defending me" from charges raised by Jeffrey.
The primary campaign was markedly short on talk about issues as attention focused on Jeffrey's allegations of electoral misconduct by Ware and the Democratic Party leadership.
The challenger's campaign plan appeared from the beginning to be to try to find a way to discredit Ware's candidacy, or possibly even keep his name off the ballot entirely.
The first challenge arose on April 10, the final filing date for primary candidates, when Jeffrey and his campaign manager, Mark Powell, visited the Roanoke registrar's office and demanded to see Ware's voter petitions.
A disagreement arose with Tony Reed, the Roanoke City Democratic Committee chairman. Reed oversees the primary process for Democrats in the 11th House District.
The altercation later spread to a bookstore, where Jeffrey was allowed to see the petitions but not to copy them.
He later asserted that the petitions might have had an inadequate number of appropriate signatures, had suspect witnesses and were improperly notarized. Powell also filed an assault complaint against Reed, which will be heard this month.
Reed denied any irregularities in the petitions, a position later upheld by Roanoke Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell. The Jeffrey campaign complained that Caldwell should have handed off that investigation to someone else because he was on record as endorsing and contributing to Ware's campaign.
Caldwell defended his actions, saying the Jeffrey campaign had called him as a witness in the assault case, which was tantamount to vouching for his trustworthiness.
A state board of elections official said an examination of Ware's financial records indicated that they may need to be amended to add detail, but that they didn't appear to violate the state code.
Jeffrey did not return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday night.
Ware will face Republican challenger Troy Bird, 26, in the fall election.
