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HOPEWELL — After suing his city’s election chief for what he says was her failure to turn over information he was legally entitled to, Hopewell GOP Chairman Brandon Howard escalated his running feud with Registrar Yolanda Stokes by protesting outside her office.

But it wasn’t the message on Howard’s sign that caused a commotion at Monday night’s meeting of the Hopewell Electoral Board. It was what was on his hip.

Just as he did during his protest on the Saturday before Election Day, Howard came to Monday’s meeting armed with a handgun. Sitting in the front row in a meeting room at the Appomattox Regional Library, Howard accused Stokes of violating his First Amendment rights by calling the police on him as he stood outside her office with a sign calling her a liar and demanding her resignation.

“She said we couldn’t be there. Because she doesn’t know the law,” said Howard, who was joined at the protest by fellow Republican official Valerie Strickland.

Others at the meeting saw something more sinister in Howard’s protest, with several in the mostly African-American crowd saying the demonstration was an act of voter intimidation, scaring people away from an election office where absentee voting was taking place.