absentee voting Archives - The Virginia Star

Trump Expands Push for GOP Embrace of Early and Mail-In Voting

June 10, 2024 Just the News

The 2020 presidential election witnessed a nationwide surge in the prevalence of early voting and vote-by-mail practices, which featured heavily in former President Donald Trump’s claims that mass election fraud influenced the outcome. According to the Pew Research Center, 46% of voters in the 2020 race voted by absentee or mail-in ballot, and 27% reported having voted early.

Republicans were subsequently reluctant to embrace such practices, though a lackluster midterm performance and the about-face of the presumptive GOP nominee on the matter appears to have the Republicans rethinking their approach.

Commentary: The Vast and Rapid Expansion of Mail-In Balloting Facilitates Election Skulduggery

March 19, 2024March 18, 2024 Virginia Star Staff

In the absence of an extremely unlikely recovery of public confidence in the President and the Democrats, the voters will attempt to return the White House and the Senate to the Republicans in November. As to the presidency, Trump is the beneficiary of an accelerating collapse in the traditional Democratic coalition that rested on a foundation of white working class and minority voters.

House of Delegates Subcommittee Advances Three Republican Elections Reforms

January 26, 2022January 25, 2022 Eric Burk

The General Assembly started out Tuesday with a 7 a.m. House of Delegates subcommittee meeting where Republicans passed some election reforms bills, and ended the day in a lengthy Senate committee meeting where Democrats killed seven of Senator Amanda Chase’s (R-Chesterfield) election reform bills. The House Privileges and Elections Subcommittee One heard three bills focused on absentee voting, voter photo identification and voter registration.

Republicans Ready to Fight if Democrats Cheat in Virginia Gubernatorial Election

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021 Peter D'Abrosca

Should there be indications of widespread Democrat voter fraud in Tuesday’s election, Republicans are ready to battle on behalf of gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin in Virginia.

Sources within a coordinated effort to get out the vote and secure election integrity in Virginia shared details on their efforts with The Virginia Star.

REVIEW: Hemingway’s ‘Rigged’ a Bone Chilling Page-Turner into the 2020 Election

November 2, 2021November 1, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

We are a year overdue for the true story of the 2020 elections. Mollie Hemingway has at last delivered it to us in one tidy volume.

It’s a complex story, which makes for a weighty book. The research is thorough, the writing is evidentiary, the style is clinical—like investigative journalism and social science used to be. The endnotes alone run nearly 100 pages.

Reading Rigged, one isn’t jarred by hyperbole, conjecture, or spin. Hemingway is unequivocal on progressive malice, yet she can be scathing of Republicans, too. She is particularly critical of Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to publicize fraud nationally, thereby undermining prior case-by-case efforts to get particular state courts to recognize particular violations of particular state laws.

Judge Tosses Virginia Election Integrity Lawsuit

November 2, 2021November 1, 2021 Peter D'Abrosca

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.”

Fairfax Dems Use COVID-19 in Attempt to Eliminate Witness Signatures on Absentee Ballots

October 9, 2021October 8, 2021 Peter D'Abrosca

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, comprised of nine Democrats and one lone Republican, voted in favor this week of a measure that would end the witness signature requirement on absentee ballots.

They are now asking Gov. Ralph Northam (D) for permission to ignore the requirement, according to Inside NOVA.

Push to Reverse Arizona Election Reform Laws Fails to Make Ballot

October 2, 2021October 1, 2021 Virginia Star Staff

An effort to reverse three recently enacted election integrity laws has failed.

Petitioners couldn’t collect the required signatures to put three questions on the 2022 general election ballot regarding whether to reverse three laws passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by Gov. Doug Ducey over the summer.

“We did not collect enough signatures to submit to the Secretary of State to stop SB1485, HB 2569 and SB 1819 by the deadline today, so the fight to protect voting rights will go on,” Arizona Deserves Better, who spearheaded the drive, said Tuesday.

Pennsylvania County Commissioners’ Group Opposes Live-Streaming of Mail-In Vote Counting

September 24, 2021 Bradley Vasoli

Bipartisan enthusiasm for election-reform legislation appeared solid at a Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee hearing on Thursday, save for one part: video live-streaming of mail-in-ballot counting.

Elements of the bill, sponsored by Sen. David Argall (R-PA-Pottsville) and Sen. Sharif Street (D-PA-Philadelphia), have arisen largely from recommendations in a June 2021 report by the Senate Special Committee on Election Integrity and Reform. Argall and Street’s proposal excludes some of the ad hoc panel’s more contentious ideas, particularly enhanced voter-identification rules, which Rep. Seth Grove (R-PA-York) is spearheading in separate legislation. (While Gov. Tom Wolf [D] vetoed Grove’s bill in June, the representative has reintroduced it in light of the governor’s subsequent remarks in favor of a strengthened voter-ID requirement.)

Virginia House Moves to Expand Ballot Drop Boxes, Allow Ballot ‘Curing’

January 20, 2021January 19, 2021 Eric Burk

The Virginia House of Delegates passed a voting reform bill on Tuesday. Key provisions of HB 1888 require ballot drop boxes in all localities, allow voters to “cure” or fix errors on their own absentee ballots, and require elections officials to begin processing absentee ballots before Election Day. Additionally, it requires localities to provide ballot marking tools and screen reader assistance technology for visually impaired voters.

Where the Republican Party Stands: Virginia’s Political Shifts in the 2020 Election

November 8, 2020November 7, 2020 Corinne Murdock

The 2020 election outcomes revealed a telling political trajectory occurring in Virginia and the nation. Final tallies indicated that Republicans’ future chances of winning in the state may be ever-slimming. A consistent theme across the board – Republicans fell short with the unprecedented number of absentee voters.

Although Republicans increased their presidential vote totals from 2016 by about 185,000, Democrats increased their votes by nearly 400,000. In every election since 2008, Democratic candidates had only enjoyed about a 10,000 vote increase per year.

At the State Voter Registration Deadline, Almost One Million Virginians Have Already Cast Their Ballots

October 14, 2020October 13, 2020 Jacob Taylor

With Tuesday’s voter registration deadline having now passed, the Commonwealth is entering the final stretches before the general elections in November and Virginians have been feverishly casting their votes with nearly 1 million in-person and absentee ballots already submitted.

Specifically, 532,983 in-person votes and 444,390 votes by mail have already been cast in the state with an additional 642,687 absentee ballot applications that have not yet been returned to general registrars, according to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) early voting dashboard.

Senate Advances Bill on Election Voting Provisions after Nearly Two Hours of Debate on Amendments

August 28, 2020August 28, 2020 Jacob Taylor

The Senate advanced House Bill (HB) 5120, sponsored by Sen. Howell (D-Fairfax County), to its third and final reading after spending more than half of the three hour session debating Thursday morning.

The topic which garnered the most discussion during the session was not the bill itself, however, rather one of the multiple amendments within Howell’s legislation.

Wealthy Donors Pour Millions into Fight over Mail-In Voting

July 28, 2020July 27, 2020 The Associated Press

Deep-pocketed and often anonymous donors are pouring over $100 million into an intensifying dispute about whether it should be easier to vote by mail, a fight that could determine President Donald Trump’s fate in the November election.

In the battleground of Wisconsin, cash-strapped cities have received $6.3 million from an organization with ties to left-wing philanthropy to help expand vote by mail. Meanwhile, a well-funded conservative group best known for its focus on judicial appointments is spending heavily to fight cases related to mail-in balloting procedures in court.

New Polling Finds Nearly Half of Americans Believe Mail-In Voting Is Vulnerable to Significant Levels of Fraud

July 20, 2020July 19, 2020 Virginia Star Staff

Nearly 50% of American voters believe mail-in voting is likely to result in significant fraud as officials search for ways to secure the electoral system amid a]the coronavirus pandemic, a Washington Post/ABC poll published Sunday found.

Only 43% of people surveyed in the poll think there are adequate protections against potential instances of fraud. The WaPo/ABC poll also showed that 38% of Americans say they prefer to vote through mail, while another 59% want to vote in person.