From the Archives: Virginia elections board halts changes to voter registration form

Publisher's note: This article was originally published on Examiner.com on August 12, 2015. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site is scheduled to go dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.

Virginia elections board halts changes to voter registration form

Virginia's State Board of Elections (SBE) has withdrawn a controversial proposal for revising voter registration forms in the face of widespread criticism by election officials and the public.

As explained on the political web site Bearing Drift by Brian Schoeneman, former secretary of the Fairfax County Electoral Board, the proposal included “fundamental changes to the material omissions policies that are codified in Virginia law and that help to both prevent fraudulent voter registrations and to provide law enforcement with information they may need to prosecute registration fraud.”

The proposed changes would have eliminated the requirement that potential voters check boxes next to statements regarding their statuses as eligible American citizens and non-felons. Instead, they could simply sign a general statement at the bottom of the form attesting to their eligibility, saying that nothing disqualifies them from registering to vote.

Objections
SBE meetings are generally quiet affairs that draw little attention from the press or public, but last month’s meeting in Midlothian attracted a standing-room-only crowd and unrelentingly negative comments about the proposed changes in the form. Members of the General Assembly encouraged their constituents to attend the meeting and also to register their objections on line. (There were eventually 1,259 comments about the proposed regulatory changes.)

In an email message distributed to electoral boards and general registrars dated August 11, SBE chairman James Alcorn wrote: “As Chair of the Board, I have reviewed the public comments submitted regarding the voter registration application and associated regulations. (http://goo.gl/UqgvWg) In response to the substantive concerns raised, I am pulling the proposal from the Board’s September agenda.”

The proposal, Alcorn explained, “needs substantive work before the Board can review any potential changes and this issue requires more time for proper analysis. I am asking staff of the Department of Elections to work in a collaborative fashion with the broader elections community to develop any future changes to the voter registration application and associated regulations.”

Applications denied
Alcorn also explained the scope of the problem that the Board was trying to address:

“Since 2011, Virginia general registrars have denied over 100,000 voter registration applications due to missing information. A person’s ability to register to vote should be judged on their legal qualifications and not on their ability to complete an administrative form.”

That problem, he said, “persists and we should work together to make it easier for all qualified Virginians to participate in the electoral process.”

Alcorn invited electoral board members and registrars to submit their “ideas about how to address this issue that affects too many Virginians.”

Further study
Finally, the SBE chairman indicated that the proposal will be studied further to determine what action should be taken, if any.

“To facilitate this discussion,” Alcorn said, “I am asking the Department of Elections to conduct an analysis on the rejection of voter registration forms; to provide findings to the Board at a future meeting; and to release the data and findings via the Department’s website so it is easily accessible to all stakeholders.”

Revisions to the voter registration application form and other types of forms are probably inevitable. For instance, the absentee ballot application, which has become particularly unwieldy as more and more excuses are approved by the General Assembly, will eventually need to be changed. This is even more likely as such documents gravitate to on-line rather than paper forms.

If this decision by the SBE to halt the revision of the voter registration form shows anything, it is that when citizens and public officials raise objections loudly and voluminously, those criticisms are heard and heeded.

SUGGESTED LINKS

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Four priorities for election law reform in Virginia discussed by VEBA legislative chair Robin Lind
Virginia's top elections official Nancy Rodrigues says 'elections have changed forever'
Georgetown philosophy professor Jason Brennan explores ethics of voting
Porn king Larry Flynt defends free speech in Charlottesville

Original URL: http://www.examiner.com/article/virginia-elections-board-halts-changes-to-voter-registration-form

Fuzzy memories of elections past

An odd letter made its way into the Charlottesville Daily Progress today.

The letter, submitted by Albemarle County resident Hubert Hawkins, makes an argument about retaining Virginia's tradition of open primary elections, in which any voter, regardless of party affiliation, can participate in either the Democratic or Republican party's primaries for nominating candidates for the general election. (Virginia voters do not register by political party, so "party affiliation" is determined by the voter's own individual preference and observations of primary voting patterns and recorded financial contributions to candidates and party committees.)

Mr. Hawkins tries to undergird his point by reminiscing about the only time he crossed party lines to vote in a Republican primary:

Years ago when Oliver North opposed John Warner in the Republican primary, I was a Democrat who never sought to meddle in Republican elections. But I knew that my senator was going to be a Republican, no matter who won the party’s primary, because my party had no competitive candidate. So I voted in the Republican primary, fearful of what outcome might ensue from the victory of such a controversial character as North.

I have never regretted my vote, and I have always been grateful that Virginia law allows all voters to participate realistically in the future of the state and nation without restrictions on what party they may have belonged to.

The problem with that example? Oliver North never challenged John Warner for the Republican Party of Virginia's nomination for the U.S. Senate, in a primary or through any other method.

John Warner, Larry Sabato, and Mark Warner at UVA, June 2014

John Warner ran unopposed for the GOP nomination in 1990, and he had no Democratic opponent in the November election. Nancy Spannaus, a devotee of political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, was the only other candidate on the ballot that year. Warner beat Spannaus by sweeping every county and city and earning 80.9 percent of the vote.  The absence of a Democratic general election candidate that year may be what Mr. Hawkins is trying to recall in his letter to the editor.

In 1994, Oliver North sought the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate and winning it in a convention against former Reagan administration official James C. Miller III. There was no primary election that year, and John Warner was not on the ballot. North went on to lose the general election to incumbent Democrat Chuck Robb in a three-way race that also included independent J. Marshall Coleman. That election was the subject of a popular documentary film, A Perfect Candidate.

In 1996, Jim Miller challenged John Warner for the nomination in a primary election but Warner won and went on to face Democrat Mark Warner in the general election.

After serving one term as Virginia''s governor, Mark Warner eventually won John Warner's U.S. Senate seat in 2008, after John Warner decided to retire.  The two of them remain on friendly terms (as seen in this video from earlier this year) and, in fact, John Warner has endorsed Mark Warner's re-election bid this year.

Regardless of what one thinks about the merits of Mr. Hawkins' argument about open primaries, it's important that the person making that argument have his facts straight. For that matter, it is the responsibility of the newspaper's editors to ensure that such factual errors do not make their way into print.