State Senator Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax City) is trying again to pass a ban on politicians accepting campaign funds from Dominion Energy and other utilities.
Petersen’s SB 804, pre-filed for the 2023 General Assembly session, is similar to 2022 bills sponsored by Petersen, State Senator Richard Stuart (R-King George), and Delegate Lee Ware (R-Powhatan). The Senate Privileges and Elections committee killed the Senate bills in bipartisan votes 11 to four.
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The Virginia Department of Elections (ELECT) discovered 149,000 more voter transactions that got stuck in an online system between the Department of Motor Vehicles and local registrars who needed to process them. The Monday announcement comes just over a week before Election Day, and after the same problem caused delays in processing 107,000 transactions, discovered earlier in October.
The delayed transactions include voter registrations, address updates, and other changes made through the DMV from May through September. An ELECT spokesperson said thanks to Virginia’s same-day voter registration law, would-be voters have been able to update and correct their information, enabling them to vote.
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The Virginia Department of Elections has awarded a $13.5 million contract to The Canton Group, which will build a voter registration system scheduled to go live in February 2025.
“As election technology and security requirements have increased, the need to replace our current voter registration system has become imperative. Due to the critical importance of this project, this procurement was subject to the state’s high risk requirements, including review by the Virginia Information Technology Agency and the Office of the Attorney General. There is broad support for replacing VERIS, and we were determined to obtain the best solution capable of serving the Commonwealth for years to come,” Commissioner Susan Beals said in a press release.
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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.
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Senator Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) has raised 424.8 percent more money in the last 18 months than in the same period leading up to the previous Senate election cycle, according to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP).
“I’d attribute that to her being in a highly competitive primary this time and building a much stronger public profile for herself,” CNalysis Director Chaz Nuttycombe told The Virginia Star.
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The Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) is on track to finish adjudicating outstanding unemployment insurance claims that were pending as of May 10th, Commissioner Ellen Hess said on Thursday. A settlement in a lawsuit against the VEC requires the backlog of 92,158 claims to be resolved by Labor Day.
“As of June 5, 66,966 claims remain in this effort,” Hess told the Commission on Unemployment Compensation, a joint commission with legislators from both chambers.
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The City of Newport News has voted to move its municipal elections from May to November, but even as they passed the ordinance, the city council members made it clear that they don’t think the change is a good idea. The change is required by legislation passed in the 2021 General Assembly session that goes into effect January 1, 2022.
“I think it really puts us in a tenuous situation. We have always worked as a council without being concerned about party lines and it seems like something of this nature may cause us to begin to look at things based on party and not based on what’s best for the City of Newport News,” Vice Mayor Saundra Cherry said.
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The General Assembly has passed legislation to move local elections for city, town council, and school board from May to November, starting in 2022. Proponents say the bill will boost voter turnout, especially among working-class voters, while many city officials say the bill is state interference that will lead to greater partisanship in local elections.
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