Late last week, a judge on the Virginia Circuit Court for Fairfax County threw out a lawsuit by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), which was levied against Fairfax County Board of Elections and the Fairfax County General Registrar.
“The lawsuit was dismissed because our client, the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, lacked standing, so the merits of the case were never heard. It is a shame that an election will take place with the largest county in Virginia breaking the law,” Lauren Bowman, the spokeswoman for PILF, told The Virginia Star. “The good news is other counties in Virginia are following all election rules and guidelines. Fighting lawlessness discourages more lawlessness.”
PILF says that the county is violating the law by failing to require absentee voters to provide the last four digits of their social security number on absentee ballots.
In a press release, PILF President J. Christian Adams accused Fairfax County “of chang[ing] the rules in the middle of the game.”
He stressed that every other county in the state is requiring absentee voters to provide the last four digits of their social security numbers, a unique identifier that helps prevent voter fraud.
“The left clearly is pushing back against any sort of unique identifier to prove you are who say [sic] you are when voting,” Bowman told The Star when the lawsuit was initially filed. “They don’t like voter ID, now social security numbers, or even driver’s license numbers. Fairfax County needs to follow Virginia law. They cannot change the rules in the middle of an election.”
When it filed the lawsuit, the group also said that Fairfax County is not just violating Virginia statutes, but also the Virginia Constitution.
“The Constitution’s Anti-Suspension Clause requires that laws passed by the Virginia’s legislature are supreme to any act by a local government employee or even the Governor himself,” a press release said. “This is important because it restrains election officials in Virginia from disregarding and replacing election administration laws.”
Tuesday marks Election Day, and will settle Virginia’s high-profile gubernatorial race between Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Voting Booths” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
