A coalition of Virginia civil-rights and civil-liberties groups is pushing Gov. Glenn Youngkin to come clean on voter access.
With the 2024 elections, in which Virginians will be headed to the polls to vote for president, the U.S. Senate and 11 seats in the U.S. House, looming not far in the distance, the groups shared concerns about the removal of 3,603 voters from the rolls ahead of last fall’s state election cycle.
Youngkin’s office issued a press release two weeks ago to try to get us to believe that he’s trying to strengthen election-security measures, but his Executive Order 35 was derided by one critic, House Privileges and Elections Committee chair Marcia “Cia” Price, D-Newport News, as “more political than anything else.”
“Public transparency about Virginia’s execution of list maintenance and data sharing protocols is of the utmost importance to ensure that Virginia’s voters are not wrongfully purged from the voter rolls,” the groups wrote to Youngkin in a letter dated Aug. 13, and made available to the media on Wednesday. “We take seriously the potential for errors in database matching, the consequences for voters and the public at large of any erroneous removal of eligible voters from the voter registration rolls, and Virginia’s recent history of mistakes and errors with data sharing protocols in particular,.
“The integrity of our electoral system depends on the protection of every eligible Virginian’s right and freedom to vote,” the letter continued. “It is crucial that any measures taken in the name of election security do not prevent eligible voters from having their voices heard or in any way intimidate or dissuade voters from participating or sowing distrust in our democratic processes. Our organizations stand ready to engage in constructive dialogue with your offices to ensure that Virginia’s elections remain free, fair, and accessible to all eligible voters.”
Youngkin claimed in a statement included in the Aug. 8 press release that his election-security focus “isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s an American and Virginian issue,” adding that “every legal vote deserves to be counted without being watered down by illegal votes or inaccurate machines.”
His desire to be seen as being proactive on election security is curious, considering his vetoes of election-security legislation passed by the Virginia General Assembly earlier this year, including one that would have had the state rejoin the Election Registration Information Center, a national organization that helps ensure up-to-date voter rolls and helps voters register when they move.
Youngkin pulled Virginia out of ERIC last year, even after the Virginia Department of Elections, in a 2022 report, noted how the state’s participation in the organization had “streamlined” cooperation with other states in the sharing of voter-registration data.
The move to withdraw Virginia was in line with a push from Republican governors in several states who pulled out of the commission, which was launched in 2012, with Virginia, at the behest of the Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, one of the founding members.
In place of membership in ERIC, which has membership from 24 states and the District of Columbia, Youngkin had the state enter into an agreement with six neighboring states to share data and “securely compare voter lists and identify potential voter fraud.”
The governor vetoed a 2024 bill to get Virginia back into ERIC, and also used his veto pen to kill another measure that would have expanded the state’s existing ban on guns at polling places, prohibiting firearms within 100 feet of polling places and applying that standard to satellite voting sites and any buildings where recounts are being performed or where an electoral board meeting is taking place.
“We use 100 percent paper ballots with a strict chain of custody,” Youngkin said in the statement in his office’s press release. “We use counting machines, not voting machines, that are tested prior to every election and never connected to the internet. We do not mass mail ballots. We monitor our drop boxes 24/7. We verify the legal presence and identity of voters using DMV data and other trusted data sources to update our voter rolls daily, not only adding new voters, but scrubbing the lists to remove those that should not be on it, like the deceased, individuals that have moved, and non-citizens that have accidentally or maliciously attempted to register.”
Price offered a blunt assessment of what Executive Order 35 really was: “We’re going to keep doing what we’re already doing.”
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Chris Graham
