Category: Electoral process
-
GOP and Virginia Election Laws, Part II
by Steve Haner With the 2021 General Assembly receding in the rear view mirror, the voting rules for this year’s Virginia elections are set. Republicans who are whining that the deck has been stacked against them are making a mistake. Every change the Democrats see as a benefit to them is of equal benefit to…
-
GOP and Virginia Election Laws, Part I
by Steve Haner Let us elevate a discussion from the comment string to the main page: Having examined Richard Hall-Sizemore’s offered examples of Virginia Republicans seeking to discourage voting in Virginia, I reject his assertion (part of a coordinated national campaign) that those bills “would result in fewer people voting.” The broadest Republican bill he…
-
How to Rig the Redistricting Process with Nobody Noticing
by James A. Bacon While Virginia Democrats continue to batter Republicans with charges of “voter suppression,” they also continue to rig the electoral system to favor Democrats. The national Census counts incarcerated persons at the correctional facilities where they are held. But a new Virginia law requires the state Redistricting Commission to assign prison inmates…
-
Voter Suppression? Who? Us?
Here’s what’s happening in Terry McAuliffe’s gubernatorial fund-raising fever dreams: Republican candidate Pete [Snyder] announced his campaign is launching a Trump-style voter suppression operation. … And they’re hiring Trump-lackey Ken Cuccinelli to run it. … Pete Snyder is tapping Ken to run the same kind of racist, anti-democratic voter suppression operation Donald Trump ran. And…
-
Virginia Democrats Govern in the Service of Dogma and Power
by James C. Sherlock Socialism and communism are so 19th and 20th centuries. Under socialism, individuals would still own property. But industrial production, which was the chief means of generating wealth, was to be communally owned and managed by a democratically elected government. Socialists sought change and reform, but sought to make those changes…
-
Remember the 38th!
Congratulations to the citizens of the 38th state senatorial district — you have been re-enfranchised. Republican T. Travis Hackworth handily won the special election to replace former Sen. Ben Chafin, who died in January, garnering 76% of the vote. Better late than never, I suppose. But due to Governor Ralph Northam’s failure (or refusal) to…
-
Candidate Suppression in Virginia
by James A. Bacon Democrats coined a highly effective phrase, “voter suppression,” to describe Republican efforts to regulate the integrity of the voting process. Maybe it’s time Republicans popularized the phrase, “candidate suppression.” Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, is a case in point. As the Republican Party of Virginia nears its nominating convention for statewide offices,…
-
Progress! GOP Replaces FUBAR With Confusion
by Steve Haner Virginia Republicans are finally beginning their nomination process for statewide candidates, graduating from the FUBAR phase of this exercise to a state of mere confusion. It is not a primary, nor is it a traditional “under one roof” convention, nor even the proposed “everyone in one parking lot” convention. The process most…
-
Virginia GOP–The Party that Couldn’t Shoot Straight
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The conservatives on this blog have been spending a great deal of time lamenting what the Democratic majority and progressives are doing to the state’s universities, public schools, and life in general. However, there has been very little mention of the Commonwealth’s other major political party. Frankly, I do not blame them…
-
Richmond Bigfoots Beach Elections
by Kerry Dougherty They think they’re so clever. Richmond Democrats, that is. They believe that by forcing Virginia Beach to adopt a ward voting system – without first bothering to find out what the people want – they can turn the city council blue. What other reason could there possibly be for passing a bill…
-
Baby Steps Toward Campaign Finance Reform
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Virginia law prohibits a candidate for public office from converting “excess” campaign funds to her personal use when closing out her campaign finance account. However, there is nothing to prevent a candidate from using campaign funds for personal, non-campaign related, purposes during a campaign. Ever since his first General Assembly session (2014),…
-
Dems Spike Dead-People-Don’t-Vote Bill
by Kerry Dougherty Every once in a while – not often, rarely in fact – you see a common sense bill in the General Assembly and think to yourself, “No one could oppose this.” That was the case with SB1422, a measure introduced by Virginia Beach State Sen. Jen Kiggans. She calls it her “Election…
-
Rigging the Election Rules — Legally
by James A. Bacon First, we present this news item from the Roanoke Times, headlined, “Democrats push to preserve pandemic voting access measures.” After the November election, legislators knew changes to Virginia’s election laws were in order. Democrats and Republicans had differing views of what those changes should be. Encouraged by a presidential election with…
-
Election Law Transformation Continues Apace
By Steve Haner As I’ve explained too many times to people who won’t believe it, President Joe Biden won Nov. 3. While there remains no evidence of widespread fraud or error, election law changes achieved by Democrats in key states were a major contributing factor to that outcome. That transformation started here in Virginia in…
-
Breath-Taking Hypocrisy
by James A. Bacon When Governor Ralph Northam delivered his state-of-the-commonwealth speech two days ago, he gave a special nod to Sen. Ben Chafin, R-Russell County, who had died several days previously from complications relating to COVID-19. “He was my friend, and I miss him,” Northam said. “Whether on the Senate floor or in my…