Category: Electoral process
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For Your Viewing Pleasure: Television Ad Spending Now Online
The Virginia Public Access Project has begun publishing this campaign season a new data set for Virginia congressional elections — television ad spending. You can view total spending for the campaign to date, as I show here with the hotly contested Comstock/Wexton and Brat/Spanberger races. Or, if you’re a total junky, you can check the…
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Oh, The Tangled Webs We Weave
Let’s not and say we did. If I had a dollar for every time I said that to some over-enthusiastic campaign worker for my candidate or some other one with some wild idea to screw with the other side…. Perhaps GOP Congressman Scott Taylor should have used the phrase, or my other favorite: Don’t do…
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Now The House of Delegates Map Must Change
The predominant consideration in a legislator’s mind in any effort to draw legislative districts is first, will I get re-elected and second, will enough of my friends get elected or re-elected so we can form a gang and control this place? The third consideration is can we get this plan signed by the governor and…
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Maps that Should Terrify Republicans
Building on Don’s post from earlier this morning (“Does the RPV have the guts to scuttle the GA?”), I would add to the list of fundamental changes Republicans should seek to enact before they lose control of the General Assembly — redistricting reform. Here’s what Virginia’s congressional districts look like now after Republican gerrymandering, according…
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Aunt Virginia Needs You (As An Election Officer)
One of the sheets of paper taped on the wall in Richmond’s Maple Avenue Fire Station Tuesday was a recruiting poster seeking additional qualified people to become “one of the elite!” Not Marines, not Green Berets or fire fighters – election officers. Uncle Sam and Aunt Virginia need you for this job, too. The various…
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A Non-Partisan Election Reform: Shorter Lines
Here’s an idea for election reform that everyone should be comfortable with: reducing the time voters spend in line at the polls. In 2014 a bi-partisan Presidential Commission on Electoral Administration called on state and local officials to ensure that voters wait no more than 30 minutes to cast a ballot. As a voter who spent…
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You Either Want to Change the System or You Don’t
by Brian Cannon On a recent panel at the Aspen Institute (starting at 51:30), Tom Perez (DNC Chair) and Michael Steele (former RNC Chair) touched on the issue of redistricting reform. Perez said one of the most important things we need to do is engage in redistricting reform. Steele agreed. He also applauded Governor Larry Hogan’s…
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Final Count: 5,556 Non-Citizens Registered to Vote in Virginia
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) and Virginia Voters Alliance have uncovered documentary evidence that at least 5,556 non-citizens have been illegally registered to vote in Virginia since 2011, and that 1,852 of them cast 7,474 ballots before election officials canceled their registrations. Those numbers are considerably higher than figures provided in a study last…
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Tom Perriello — the Radical Chic Candidate
After Virginia gubernatorial candidates filed their campaign finance updates yesterday, all eyes turned to Democratic Party candidate Tom Perriello. The progressive populist, who decries the role of big money in politics, was himself the largest beneficiary of big money of the six announced candidates. The Perriello campaign pocketed $385,000 from hedge fund billionaire George Soros and…
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When Registered Voters Outnumber Voting-Age Citizens
Eight localities in Virginia have more registered voters than voting-age citizens, and in another 15 localities registered voters amount to 95% of the voting-age citizens. Sound funny to you? SB 1105, authored by state Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, and approved by the Senate, would require registrars to look into the data whenever the ratio exceeds…
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PILF Inquiry into Noncitizen Voting Gains Traction
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has closed lawsuits against Chesterfield County and the City of Manassas, a step that will allow the organization to determine the total number of noncitizens, known to authorities, who registered and voted illegally. Under the U.S. motor-voter law, citizens are allowed to register to vote when they pick up their…
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Less Turnover than the Supreme Soviet
by Brian Cannon The United States has a dearth of competitive Congressional elections. Of the 435 voting seats in the House of Representatives, only 36 were competitive this past November. Politicians have brilliantly gerrymandered out almost all competition from their districts to ensure themselves easy re-elections. With only about 8% of our elections considered competitive…
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2016 a Big Year for Libertarian Party
Unless you read the LP News, you probably didn’t realize that 2016 was a record-breaking year for the Libertarian Party. The national news media tuned out Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson after he suffered his “Aleppo moment,” and his poll numbers fell in the last weeks as the race tightened between Donald Trump and Hillary…
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No Simple Answers about Illegal Voting
President-elect Donald Trump blasted out another of his notorious tweets three days ago, claiming that he would have won a majority of votes in the 2016 election were it not for “serious voter fraud” in Virginia and other states. “Why isn’t the media reporting on this?” he asked. “Serious bias – big problem!” National TV networks…
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Voting Happenstance… Or Enemy Action?
My sister Mary Bacon walked into the Precinct 101 voting station at the St. James Armenian Church in Richmond around 7:45 a.m. today. She was working through her ballot when a woman in the voting booth next to her exclaimed, “Hey, half my ballot is filled out!” The two-sided paper ballot, which had state and local races…