Virginia’s Governor, Terry McAuliffe, demonstrated leadership and respect for the state’s voters and taxpayers, by vetoing an unnecessary and harmful voter registration bill. The bill, HB9, would have required election officials to reject voter registration applicants if they fail to include items like previous voter registration information or check a box to indicate they haven’t been registered before; or fail to check a box saying that they will be at least 18 years of age on or before the date of the next general election.
Sounds reasonable, right?
What if an applicant provides their full date of birth, but overlooks the checkbox indicating that they will be 18-years-old by the next election? Under HB 9, the election official, who has all of the information necessary to assess voter eligibility and can easily tell the person is over 18 by their birthdate, would have been forced to reject the application.
Or what if the applicant skips the section entitled “Previous Voter Registration” because they’re a never-before-registered first-time voter? HB 9 would codify a requirement that election officials reject applications if the applicant failed to “indicate that he is not currently registered in the Commonwealth or in another state.” Or what if the applicant has moved many times since last registering and can’t remember their previous voter registration address? HB 9 has nothing in it to protect those voters from having their applications rejected on those grounds.
This bill did not appear to provide any opportunity to complete or correct existing applications, no matter how minor the omission. The consequences of such a bill would have been very real for Virginians. Taxpayers would have been stuck with the tab for the increased rejection notifications and mailings. Far worse, if a minor oversight resulted in the rejection of a voter registration application around the voter registration deadline, then otherwise eligible Virginia voters would have been needlessly deprived of the chance to vote.
It seems Virginia legislators were the unreasonable ones. This is the wrong direction to go. Recently, a letter to the editor in the Washington Post declared in no uncertain terms, “Virginia voter registration is a nightmare.” Virginia legislators should make it easier for eligible citizens to register, not harder.
This is why we encouraged Governor McAuliffe to veto HB 9 and commend him for doing so. Moving forward, we hope this will force Virginia legislators to consider reforms that will actually improve and modernize election procedures, not complicate them.
