Strategies Offered to Protect Voters and Improve Election Administration in Virginia
Voter Protections Newsletter Volume 4 Issue 1
May 29, 2009
VIRGINIA - Advancement Project’s Voter Protection Program Director Elizabeth Westfall accepted an invitation to participate on a panel discussion that focused on Virginia’s 2008 election pitfalls that can be addressed before the 2010 election cycle.
The theme of the panel discussion--held at the George Mason School of Law in Arlington, Va.--was Election Protection Review: A Case Study of Virginia in 2008 and Preparing for 2010.
Westfall joined other voting-rights experts at the panel in a discussion about how Virginia’s election administrators can avoid the problems that happened in 2008.
During the discussion, Westfall commented on the state’s lack of preparedness for the 2008 election cycle.
“As it became clear that the race for the presidency might hinge upon Virginia’s electoral votes, we became extremely concerned that Virginia was unprepared for voter turnout,” she said. “Based on an analysis of public records, we concluded that in several of the jurisdictions in Virginia that we studied, voting equipment and poll workers were either misallocated or simply insufficient to accommodate all voters. Unfortunately, on Election Day, our predictions were realized in many precincts with predominantly minority voters, where voters were forced to endure long lines to cast their ballot.”
To help address voting issues in Virginia, Westfall explained that Advancement Project is focusing on the following principal priorities for 2009 and beyond:
- Work with election official and advocates to simplify Virginia’s complicated voter registration form that appears to be confusing applicants and causing many thousands to submit incomplete forms.
- Investigate voter registration in select counties to determine whether voter-registration applications are being properly processed by local election officials.
- Investigate possible barriers to voter registration through the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.
- Work with the ACLU of Virginia to reduce barriers to voting for persons with felony convictions.
- Improve poll-worker training, including the administration of provisional ballots to make sure that they are appropriately distributed to voters, but are only used as a ballot of last resort.
- Contincurrent Advancement Project voter-protection activities to investigate and uncover barriers to voting.
The panel discussion was sponsored by the Washington D.C. Lawyer chapter of the American Constitution Society and the student chapter at George Mason University School of Law.
