Official keeps job despite lying

Officials at the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics kept their chief technology officer in a $92,271-a-year job despite learning from city investigators that she had lied about having a college degree.

Vialetta Graham, who was hired in February 2002 as the chief technology officer for the board and the D.C. Office of Campaign Finance, told supervisors she earned a computer-science degree from American University in 1983. She has no such degree, according to documents that The Washington Times has obtained in connection with last year’s probe of both agencies by the D.C. Inspector General’s Office.

Board of Elections officials said Miss Graham is qualified to oversee the agency’s technology needs despite the misrepresentation on her resume and defended their decision to suspend her for 60 days in November 2002 rather than dismiss or demote her for lying about having a college degree.

Kenneth J. McGhie, general counsel for the Board of Elections, said the panel decided against dismissal because a college degree is not a requirement for Miss Graham’s position.

“The reason it wasn’t prosecuted was because it wasn’t a misrepresentation of a material fact,” Mr. McGhie said. “If it was required for the job, it would have been material … but it wasn’t required for the job.”

He said a computer-science degree earned so long ago would not hold much practical relevance given today’s more technologically advanced computers.

“They didn’t even have e-mail 20 years ago,” Mr. McGhie said.

The Board of Elections’ technology problems have come under criticism by D.C. Council members, upset that the 150 new touch-screen voting machines worth $1.14 million caused long delays in getting results of Tuesday’s presidential primary.

Board of Elections officials say Miss Graham had no role in those delays, and it is unfair to question her job skills in context of problems processing data from touch-screen voting technology used for the first time in the District’s presidential primary.

Board officials have pointed out that long delays are typical the first time a locality implements touch-screen voting. Fairfax officials experienced even longer delays in November.

“Her only job was to get the information on the Web site, and she did that,” Mr. McGhie said of Miss Graham’s election-night duties.

Miss Graham did not return calls seeking comment.

D.C. Council member Jack Evans, Ward 2 Democrat, called the delay in getting returns a national embarrassment, saying he will ask the council to hold hearings to find out why it took election officials until past midnight to tally votes in the primary.

Board of Elections Chairman Benjamin F. Wilson blamed the delays on a contractor helping to oversee the touch-screen machines, Sequoia Voting Systems Inc.

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