Commissioner of the Department of Elections (ELECT) Susan Beals said that legislative changes have stressed Virginia’s elections registration system, although she said the department is still investigating what caused a delay in the processing of thousands of voter registrations from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Last week, the Virginia Public Access Project reported that an estimated 40,000 registrations were delayed starting around June, due to network problems, and that ELECT provided registrars with a backlog of 107,000 transactions including registrations and address changes.
Senate Privileges and Elections Chair Lionell Spruill (D-Chesapeake) sent a letter to Beals, saying he was disappointed that he learned of the problem through the media and not from Beals.
In the letter, he asked, “1. What has caused the ‘intermittent network issues’? 2. Why have these issues not happened before? 3. Why are they occurring after voting has begun and shortly before an election? 4. Is the Department prepared to handle same-day voter registration on Election Day? 5. Are [there] any bills and/or budget authority that your Department requires to avoid these kinds of issues in the future?”
In a letter an ELECT spokesperson shared with The Virginia Star, Beals responded to Spruill, saying that ELECT is analyzing the problem and can’t provide details, that the department detected the issue in the last week of September, and that ELECT is ready to handle same-day voter registration.
She said that although funding is in place and ELECT is procuring a new system, the current 15-year-old system is being stressed by legislative changes to election law.
“In the past two years, Virginia has seen unprecedented changes to the way elections are conducted in Virginia. While these legislative changes increased access to the ballot and had a positive impact on voters, many of these bills required significant changes to our aging voter registration system. This year alone the system was amended to accommodate redistricting, Same Day Registration, the preregistration of 16-year-olds, as well as precinct level reporting. Any additional requirements to the system pose significant risk,” she wrote.
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Susan Beals” by Virginia Conservative Women’s Coalition. Background Photo “Virginia Capitol” by Martin Kraft. CC BY-SA 3.0.
