From EPEC Team Newsletter: In a win for transparency in elections and voter-roll accuracy, Virginia’s Dept. of Elections (‘ELECT’) has apparently agreed to return full month and birth dates to voter-registration lists as required under federal statute. The development comes after ELECT abruptly began withholding full date-of-birth data from client-service voter records in August, just

Commissioner of Elections’ recent briefing to VA General Assembly shows a difference of over 35,000 ballots compared to Daily Absentee List ballot totals. EPEC Team breaks it down.

EPEC TEAM NEWS RELEASE: Electoral Boards and General Registrars managed over 123,000 SDR provisional ballots during the 2024 election, call for changes to ensure only eligible ballots are counted February 10, 2025 — Electoral Board Members and General Registrars across Virginia say Same Day Registration (SDR) must be reformed or ended from its current state … Read more

The Trump administration’s Department of Justice filed a motion this week to withdraw from a lawsuit the Biden DOJ had filed against Virginia to stop it from conducting voter-list maintenance under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). (See the brief motion here.) Courthouse News reported that U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Joe U.S. District Court Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles, a Joe Biden appointee, said at a hearing Friday she would take the DOJ’s motion to dismiss under advisement.

From EPEC Team Newsletter: Virginia’s General Assembly is considering remedies to Same Day Registration (SDR) chaos from the 2024 presidential election that allowed ineligible ballots to count. At least two bills in circulation appear to be addressing the problem by providing more time for regular registration before Election Day. Whether the bills address flaws

From EPEC Team Newsletter: Virginia’s experiment with its Same Day Registration statute, which went into effect in 2022, met its first major stress test during the 2024 Presidential Election. Based on logs available so far, this much of a partial verdict is in: SDR voters overwhelmed many precincts during early voting and election day. The VA gears up for another big election year while still sorting through a blizzard of Same Day Registration records from 2024. Registrars are calling for changes.

Some highlights of 2024 as we start to roll out full reports on key issues and findings about Virginia’s 2024 elections.

From EPEC Team Newsletter: Merry Christmas from EPEC Team — to our growing list of subscribers, generous supporters, and trusted advisors! And most of all, Merry Christmas to all the volunteers we are proud to join in driving election security and trusted results across Virginia and the nation. As we look back and index an Merry Christmas from EPEC Team, and Happy Hanukkah.

One of our projects is acquiring publicly available election records before their retention dates expire, and to pay the time of General Registrars to produce them.

By Chris Rohland and Erin Marie Joyce Virginia’s Department of Elections (‘ELECT’) is the overseer of elections across the Commonwealth. But when the Dept. of Elections itself is flouting transparency and federal voter-list management laws, who is overseeing ELECT? Amid a string of policy decisions that have all but invited litigation over compliance with federal Mistakes, questionable ‘opinions’ of transparency statutes, and outright violations of federal laws on voter-list management. Is it time for more oversight of the overseer of Virginia’s elections?