In a letter to the chairmen of the House and Senate Privileges & Elections committees (respectively, Delegate Mark Cole and state Senator Mark Obenshain) and those committees’ members, the president of the Virginia Electoral Board Association (VEBA), Renee B. Andrews of Falls Church, has asked the General Assembly to table the two voter ID bills passed earlier this year. Barring that, Andrews asked that the delegates and senators reject some of Governor Bob McDonnell’s proposed amendments to the bills (now designated as SB1ER and HB9ER).
The aim of these bills was to require, with a few, carefully carved out exceptions, that voters present photo identification in order to cast a ballot.
In her April 17 letter, sent on behalf of the Executive Board of VEBA, Andrews says that the organization
… recommends against passage of SB1ER/HB9ER in any form in 2012 and recommends turning the legislation over to the Privileges and Elections Committees of the Senate and House of Delegates for consideration in 2013, because this issue is not yet ripe for final action and is too complex to consider in the short timeframe available at this time.
The text of Andrews’ letter is based on a series of resolutions passed by the VEBA Executive Board during a conference call on April 16, and also includes objections and endorsements to several amendments recommended by the Governor. The General Assembly can reject the Governor’s amendments and pass the bills in their original form, or it can reject the bills altogether and refer them for consideration at the next legislative session.
The letter endorses the Governor’s amendment
eliminating the issuance of a ballot to a voter without identification who is recognized and acknowledged by an officer of election.
The letter rejects the Governor’s amendments that provide for
acceptance of a provisional ballot if a majority of electoral board members are satisfied that a person’s identity has been sufficiently determined by the provisional ballot signature and the registration signature.
Election officials across the state raised objections to this signature-comparison provision because they felt they lack the competence to perform handwriting analysis. Signatures change over time and many voter registration records were long ago converted to standardized documents that do not include original signatures, so comparison is not possible in every instance.
The Governor’s amendments to these and other bills will be considered in the General Assembly’s reconvened “veto” session tomorrow.
