A federal judge in Richmond has ruled for the second time that Virginia violated the voting rights of American military personnel and overseas citizens by failing to mail absentee ballots in sufficient time for them to be counted in last year’s presidential election. “The right to vote means a right to cast a ballot that will be counted,“ U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Williams ruled Thursday.

A federal judge has ordered the state to count absentee ballots that were mailed too late to military personnel overseas last year.

The State Board of Elections has mailed address-confirmation forms to nearly 500,000 individuals in an effort to bring its voter list up to date. Spokesman Gary Ellis said the confirmations are being mailed to people identified as having potentially changed residences. Recipients are being asked to return the confirmation using self-addressed envelopes within 30 days of receipt. If a person is found to have moved out of state, that name is dropped from the state board’s list.

In its longest session this the state Senate yesterday passed a slew of bills that could affect how Virginians vote, drive and protect themselves and the environment.year, The three-hour session came on the eve of what is known as crossover—the last day upon which the Senate and the House of Delegates must complete work on their own bills before sending them across the hall to be considered by the other chamber.

Like most people, I want teens to receive medically accurate, comprehensive sexuality education that includes information on abstinence, contraception, and disease prevention. Providing them with information about their sexuality and health encourages them to become responsible and informed decision makers. It’s just common sense. Luckily, this year the Virginia General Assembly has the opportunity to pass an important piece of legislation that would greatly benefit young people: HB 1789, Medically Accurate Family Life Education. This bill would require Virginia school districts to teach comprehensive, medically accurate sex education. This means teens would receive sex education that includes information about contraception and condoms.

Election officials threw cold water yesterday on a push for early voting in Virginia. While they like the concept, they don’t have the resources to cope with it, registrars and other election officials told a joint meeting of the House and Senate Privileges and Elections committees. Virginia now allows early voting for any of 17 reasons, such as being out of town on Election Day. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine supports no-excuse absentee voting, and several bills have been introduced to authorize it.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed legislation yesterday to allow no-excuse, in-person absentee balloting in Virginia—a step he said that effectively would allow early voting in the state.

A lawsuit that accused the outgoing voter registrar of Scott County, Willie Mae Kilgore, of using her office to retaliate against a political foe has been dismissed. Kilgore, whose long and sometimes controversial career as registrar will end when she retires Dec. 15, had been scheduled to appear in circuit court this week for a trial in the civil case.

Some people stood in line for six hours yesterday to cast absentee ballots at Richmond City Hall. In eastern Henrico County, the line was so long that just before 2 p.m. voting officials delivered three additional voting machines to the Eastern Government Center. That brought the number of machines to six. Outside City Hall, lawyers for the Advancement Project took affidavits from people who told of the long wait. The Washington-based group is allied with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in a lawsuit against the state asking for paper ballots and extended voting hours Tuesday in Richmond, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Mayoral candidate William J. Pantele spoke of cautious optimism for Richmond in the face of the national financial disaster during a luncheon speech yesterday to the South Richmond Rotary Club. “Richmond has a very bright future,“ Pantele, president of the Richmond City Council, told 65 people at Meadowbrook Country Club in Chesterfield County. “Things are coming around for the city in a lot of ways.“

Rapper/actor Bow Wow is bringing his voter registration initiative, Walk Across America, to Richmond this weekend. Tomorrow, the performer will appear at the 2nd Street Festival to reinforce the importance of youth voter participation. There will be no performance. He is expected to make an appearance between noon and 2 p.m. Bow Wow is working with the nonpartisan organizations Declare Yourself and Black Youth Vote and is traveling through several cities during the next two weeks.

After Iowa and Florida took actions to restore voting rights to tens of thousands of ex-offend ers, folks in Virginia began to ask, “Why not here?“ To be sure, Govs. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have relaxed Virginia’s voter-restoration laws, which along with Kentucky’s are deemed the most restrictive in the U.S. As a result, about 6,000 nonviolent felons have had their voting rights restored under those two Democrats. But that represents a trickle compared with the splash that Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida created last spring when he restored voting rights to some 115,000 ex-offenders. In 2005, Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa issued an executive order restoring voting rights to 50,000 ex-offenders.