The Democratic Party of Virginia has filed a complaint in federal court asking a judge to stop a plan by the Virginia State Board of Elections, in coordination with Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, to purge 57,000 voters from the Virginia rolls.
Cuccinelli, the Republican nominee for governor, is the official legal adviser to the State Board, which has sought to eliminate voters that it says are listed as registered in multiple states. Democrats say that questions persist as to the accuracy of the lists provided, and that Cuccinelli’s conflict of interest in the matter raises serious questions about whether the planned purge would be carried out impartially.
In guidance to the local officials charged with carrying out the voter purge, the State Board urges those officials to “use your best judgment,” raising the real possibility of broad variance between different localities in terms of how individuals would be purged from the rolls, which would violate Virginians’ right to equal protection under the law as protected by the 14th amendment.
“Ken Cuccinelli’s refusal to resign his office as he runs for covernor continues to damage Virginians’ confidence that this upcoming election will be conducted fairly and impartially,” said Democratic Party Chair Charniele Herring. “For him to be a candidate on the ballot and the adviser to a dubious effort to take voting rights away from 57,000 Virginians is an inexcusable conflict of interest that’s become all too common for the attorney general.
“Today’s lawsuit is an effort to stop this questionable act until Virginians can be assured that it is conducted impartially and with proper consideration for the sacred voting rights of thousands of people across this Commonwealth.”
Cuccinelli responded through the attorney general office. Communications director Brian Gottstein called the suit “spurious and baseless.”
“Suing the attorney general is a shameless stunt, as under the law, he is clearly not an appropriate party to the lawsuit. He has had no personal communication with the state board or its legal counsel about the subject of this lawsuit,” Gottstein said.
“The Democratic Party’s assertion that ‘Cuccinelli is actively involved in implementing the purging campaign’ is an outright lie, which is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the party can provide no facts in its complaint to back the assertion. While a career assistant AG does provide routine legal advice to the state board, the Democratic Party’s baseless assertion that the attorney general ‘is enforcing the SBE’s unlawful purging of voters’ is patently false,” Gottstein said.
“The state board is merely doing voter registration list maintenance mandated by state law. These 57,000 people – who were specifically identified by data matches – appear to have registered to vote in other states after they registered in Virginia. By law, if they have registered in other states, they are required to be removed from Virginia’s voter registration list. After carefully analyzing the data, the state board notified local registrars to carefully review each registrant and perform legally mandated list maintenance. The purpose of these commonsense laws is to prevent people from committing voter fraud by registering and voting in multiple states,” Gottstein said.
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