EPEC NEWS

The nonprofit law firm Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (“RITE”) has sent a letter to Virginia’s Commissioner of Elections calling for changes to Prince William County’s election training manual so it complies with VA statute on voter ID.

According to RITE’s letter to Susan Beals: a portion of PWC’s Election Officer Training Manual, published by the county’s office of elections, is ignoring VA Statute.

The firm asserts that PWC’s training manual allows “individuals presenting a Driver Privilege Card (‘DPC’), which are issued only to non-citizens, to vote without challenge, so long as the person presents another form of identification.”

This instruction to officers of election to allow persons presenting a DPC to vote without challenge is unlawful. An individual’s possession of a DPC is strong evidence that he is a non-citizen and is certainly sufficient for an officer of election to “suspect” as much, since Virginia issues DPCs exclusively to non-citizens.

The letter continues:

Except for a United States passport, other forms of identification, including driver’s licenses, paychecks, bank statements, and utility bills, are not evidence that a person who possesses a DPC has become a citizen.

RITE has requested that Virginia election officials take immediate action to correct this situation in Prince William County by notifying the county of its obligation to challenge voters who present DPCs. It has also requested that she issue guidance to other counties to ensure they do not make a similar error.   

A driver license ID is by far the dominant method of presenting voter ID in Virginia’s elections. In years’ past, the guidance document on types of licenses from ELECT provided more details about how to detect the difference between a Virginia drivers’ license issued to citizens, and the so-called “Driver Privilege Card” (DPC) that is issued to noncitizens.

The Updated Guidance Sheet from ELECT has removed the explanations. The revised guidance over types of IDs not accepted can be seen here.

BACKGROUNDER on Driver Privilege Cards:

According to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by EPEC Team volunteers: Virginia’s Dept. of Motor Vehicles is allowed to issue Driver Privilege Cards (DPC) and permits to applicants who “may not meet” legal presence requirements for licenses (46.2-328.1).”

See more about the DMV Policy here.

(Full disclosure: See the letter that RITE issued on behalf of EPEC about providing full date-of-birth voter data in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act.) #