Democratic Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia are urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate whether the Youngkin administration violated the Voting Rights Act when it wiped at least 270 fully qualified Virginia voters off the state’s rolls.
In a letter dated Friday and released to the media Tuesday, Warner, Kaine and the state’s six Democrats in the House of Representatives pressed Garland to probe the recent “purge” of the voter rolls. The letter, which reinforces calls for a federal investigation that Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) made to the media last week, suggested that affected voters might number in the thousands.
“This widespread error creates an enormous barrier to the democratic process for these affected Virginians while early voting has already begun for this November’s election,” the letter says.
Elections officials under Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) acknowledged the removals last week but said they stemmed from honest mistakes that they will correct before Nov. 7 General Assembly elections, which will decide the fate of the governor’s legislative legacy and his viability as a potential 11th-hour 2024 presidential candidate.
“When the governor’s office became aware of the inconsistencies regarding the misclassification of probation violations as felonies, as had been the process in previous administrations, he asked for … [State Police] to correct the process and ordered a review,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said in an email to The Washington Post. “While analysis is still ongoing, we are aware of fewer than 300 voters who were impacted and those individuals are being reinstated. The governor is committed to ensuring those that are eligible, can vote.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Weeks after early voting kicked off Sept. 22, Youngkin’s elections officials conceded that they had removed an unknown number of voters who had been convicted of felonies, had their voting rights restored and then went on to violate the terms of their probation. The state’s computer software counted the probation violations as new felonies that disqualified them from voting, administration officials have said.
Youngkin’s elections team says it mistakenly took 270 voters off Va. rolls
The lawmakers’ letter calls news reports about the problem “alarming” given the “consequential election already underway in Virginia” and previous issues with the state’s voter registration systems under Youngkin — including backlogs that delayed the processing of about 256,000 “motor voter” registration applications in the run-up to last year’s midterm congressional elections.
Youngkin ran for the Executive Mansion in 2021 on a vow to bring “election integrity” and business-world efficiency to state government. He seemed to make good on those promises late last year, as his Elections Department said it had discovered 10,588 people on the state’s voter rolls who were ineligible to vote because of felony convictions.
At the time, elections officials chalked the problem up to a blip they’d uncovered in the state’s aging elections software — one that allowed people who’d committed a felony, had their voting rights restored by the governor and then committed a second felony, to remain on the rolls. The original software code, written under a previous administration, for the rights-restoration process did not account for the possibility that voters who regained their voting rights might subsequently be convicted of a new felony, Youngkin administration officials said.
Once the code was updated, however, the system did not differentiate between probation violations committed by voters who’d had their rights restored and entirely new felonies. The public radio station VPM first identified the problem last month, with a report on an Arlington County man removed from the rolls after a probation violation.
Elections officials acknowledged early last week that some of the 10,588 voters should not have been removed but said they were unable to determine how many. On Friday, they put the number at 270 but cautioned that it could still edge up as they continued to review the matter. In their letter to Garland, the Democrats said “potentially thousands of eligible Virginia voters” were removed.
Virginia is one of a few of states that limit voting access after a felony conviction. The commonwealth permanently disenfranchises those guilty of violent or nonviolent felonies unless the governor restores their civil rights.
Youngkin’s three immediate predecessors — one Republican, two Democrats — took steps to automatically restore rights in at least some cases once felons’ sentences were complete. The Democrats’ letter noted that Youngkin has reverted to a stricter, “opaque” policy requiring each person to file an application that the administration considers on a case-by-case basis, with no publicly disclosed criteria.
The letter also notes the “motor voter” backlogs in October 2022, when the Elections Department belatedly sent two batches of “motor voter” registration applications to local registrars for last-minute processing — 107,000 in the first batch, 149,000 in the second. The department blamed computer problems with the state’s long-troubled voter registration system, which is known as VERIS and dates to about 2007.
Youngkin’s election chief pulls Va. from group targeted by election deniers
Additionally, the letter notes that in May, Youngkin pulled Virginia out of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a data-sharing group that red and blue states alike relied on for the past decade to keep voter rolls updated before election deniers made it the focus of criticism. Virginia had been a founding member of the group under Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell.
The letter seeks “immediate action” by the Justice Department to investigate the removals and ensure that people “whose names were illegally removed from the voting rolls” are informed that they are, in fact, legally registered to vote ahead of Nov. 7.
All 140 seats in the closely divided state House and Senate will be on the ballot on Election Day. Just a handful of races in each of the closely divided chambers will decide whether Youngkin has the power to enact a conservative agenda that includes banning abortion after 15 weeks, with some exceptions.
In a letter dated Friday and released to the media Tuesday, Warner, Kaine and the state’s six Democrats in the House of Representatives pressed Garland to probe the recent “purge” of the voter rolls. The letter, which reinforces calls for a federal investigation that Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) made to the media last week, suggested that affected voters might number in the thousands.
“This widespread error creates an enormous barrier to the democratic process for these affected Virginians while early voting has already begun for this November’s election,” the letter says.
Elections officials under Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) acknowledged the removals last week but said they stemmed from honest mistakes that they will correct before Nov. 7 General Assembly elections, which will decide the fate of the governor’s legislative legacy and his viability as a potential 11th-hour 2024 presidential candidate.
“When the governor’s office became aware of the inconsistencies regarding the misclassification of probation violations as felonies, as had been the process in previous administrations, he asked for … [State Police] to correct the process and ordered a review,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said in an email to The Washington Post. “While analysis is still ongoing, we are aware of fewer than 300 voters who were impacted and those individuals are being reinstated. The governor is committed to ensuring those that are eligible, can vote.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Weeks after early voting kicked off Sept. 22, Youngkin’s elections officials conceded that they had removed an unknown number of voters who had been convicted of felonies, had their voting rights restored and then went on to violate the terms of their probation. The state’s computer software counted the probation violations as new felonies that disqualified them from voting, administration officials have said.
Youngkin’s elections team says it mistakenly took 270 voters off Va. rolls
The lawmakers’ letter calls news reports about the problem “alarming” given the “consequential election already underway in Virginia” and previous issues with the state’s voter registration systems under Youngkin — including backlogs that delayed the processing of about 256,000 “motor voter” registration applications in the run-up to last year’s midterm congressional elections.
Youngkin ran for the Executive Mansion in 2021 on a vow to bring “election integrity” and business-world efficiency to state government. He seemed to make good on those promises late last year, as his Elections Department said it had discovered 10,588 people on the state’s voter rolls who were ineligible to vote because of felony convictions.
At the time, elections officials chalked the problem up to a blip they’d uncovered in the state’s aging elections software — one that allowed people who’d committed a felony, had their voting rights restored by the governor and then committed a second felony, to remain on the rolls. The original software code, written under a previous administration, for the rights-restoration process did not account for the possibility that voters who regained their voting rights might subsequently be convicted of a new felony, Youngkin administration officials said.
Once the code was updated, however, the system did not differentiate between probation violations committed by voters who’d had their rights restored and entirely new felonies. The public radio station VPM first identified the problem last month, with a report on an Arlington County man removed from the rolls after a probation violation.
Elections officials acknowledged early last week that some of the 10,588 voters should not have been removed but said they were unable to determine how many. On Friday, they put the number at 270 but cautioned that it could still edge up as they continued to review the matter. In their letter to Garland, the Democrats said “potentially thousands of eligible Virginia voters” were removed.
Virginia is one of a few of states that limit voting access after a felony conviction. The commonwealth permanently disenfranchises those guilty of violent or nonviolent felonies unless the governor restores their civil rights.
Youngkin’s three immediate predecessors — one Republican, two Democrats — took steps to automatically restore rights in at least some cases once felons’ sentences were complete. The Democrats’ letter noted that Youngkin has reverted to a stricter, “opaque” policy requiring each person to file an application that the administration considers on a case-by-case basis, with no publicly disclosed criteria.
The letter also notes the “motor voter” backlogs in October 2022, when the Elections Department belatedly sent two batches of “motor voter” registration applications to local registrars for last-minute processing — 107,000 in the first batch, 149,000 in the second. The department blamed computer problems with the state’s long-troubled voter registration system, which is known as VERIS and dates to about 2007.
Youngkin’s election chief pulls Va. from group targeted by election deniers
Additionally, the letter notes that in May, Youngkin pulled Virginia out of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a data-sharing group that red and blue states alike relied on for the past decade to keep voter rolls updated before election deniers made it the focus of criticism. Virginia had been a founding member of the group under Republican Gov. Robert F. McDonnell.
The letter seeks “immediate action” by the Justice Department to investigate the removals and ensure that people “whose names were illegally removed from the voting rolls” are informed that they are, in fact, legally registered to vote ahead of Nov. 7.
All 140 seats in the closely divided state House and Senate will be on the ballot on Election Day. Just a handful of races in each of the closely divided chambers will decide whether Youngkin has the power to enact a conservative agenda that includes banning abortion after 15 weeks, with some exceptions.
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