16 Va. localities fail to meet absentee-ballot deadline
Despite court prodding and changes in state election laws, 16 Virginia localities have failed to meet a deadline to allow absentee ballots of military personnel serving overseas to be counted on time.
Nancy Rodriques, secretary of the State Board of Elections, said she did not know how many ballots will not be counted.
The local election districts include the cities of Richmond, Colonial Heights and Williamsburg as well as Caroline County.
"Words cannot express my disappointment in our commonwealth," said Rusty McGuire of Hanover County, chairman of the Iraqi Freedom Veterans Plate Project and deputy commonwealth's attorney in Louisa County.
The Richmond Liberty Alliance, an offshoot of the Tea Party movement, plans to protest the failure outside the State Board of Elections' headquarters at 1100 Bank St. today from 4 to 7 p.m.
The alliance has been gathering signatures to protest a process that it says leaves military votes uncounted while allowing some felons to vote. State police are investigating several instances of alleged voting by felons, which is voter fraud.
In last year's presidential race, about 2,100 military ballots went uncounted. The presidential campaign of Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin sued the State Board of Elections in U.S. District Court here. After losing the election, the McCain-Palin team withdrew and the U.S. Department of Justice's civil-rights division intervened.
Local registrars did the mishandling of the ballots, but the State Board of Elections was brought into the suit because it oversees the registrars.
On Oct. 15, U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams ruled for the second time that the state violated the voting rights of military personnel and overseas citizens last year by failing to mail absentee ballots in time for them to be counted. He gave the state 30 days to count the ballots, even though the counting would make no difference in the outcome. Barack Obama carried the state by 233,000 votes.
Rodriques said the registrars are creating a process for counting the ballots.
This year's election is next Tuesday. Most of the 16 registrars who failed to get the ballots out on time blamed the State Board of Elections' computer system.
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or
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Reader Reactions
Why aren’t these people fired already! It’s clear they can’t do the job that they were hired to do! Isn’t vote fraud and vote tampering a federal crime? It’s more proof of how corrupt and tainted our entire election process has become here in Virginia and across the country. I hope the next General Assembly takes strong corrective action to weed this stuff out because it’s a real disgrace on our state!
The shape of things to come. I pray not. More and more fraud is surfacing with every election cycle. The mid-term elections better be ‘clean’.
The local registrars that mishandled the ballots should be fired immediately, tried and sent to jail for STEALING the votes of our military personnel. This disgrace should not go unpunished.
Given that Virginia has successfully disenfranchised 300,000 ex-offenders I can’t see how “several instances of alleged voting” is worth the time of the police when they can’t even get absentee ballots out the door on time. Priorities people!
but where is the list of the 16 counties? I couldn’t find it on the SBE site or the RLA site?
What a shame! And I love the fact that felons get to vote, while the troops that defend our rights and freedom don’t have a voice while deployed. This undercuts the entire premise of democracy and should never be allowed to happen again!
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