EPEC NEWS

Electoral Process Education Corporation (EPEC) News Release:

EPEC Team reported in August it would keep readers posted on next steps after Virginia’s Department of Elections (‘ELECT’) suddenly began withholding full date of birth data from client-service voter data records just three weeks before the start of the 2024 election.

Today, we are releasing a statement and letter from the law firm Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), which has alerted the Commonwealth and ELECT of violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

RITE NEWS RELEASE:

Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE), in support of nonprofit Electoral Process Education Corporation (“EPEC”),  has notified Virginia election officials they are violating federal law by withholding information critical to efforts to verify the accuracy of the Commonwealth’s voter rolls.

Virginia is violating the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”) and a 2012 court order by withholding full birthdates from datasets the law requires ELECT to provide to nonprofit and political organizations. The state abruptly announced its decision to withhold this information  just weeks before the 2024 General Election, just when groups like EPEC need it most to verify the accuracy and currency of Virginia’s voter registration list.

EPEC has used birthdates to identify noncitizens on the registration list, to identify duplicate records, and to identify persons registered in multiple states. Virginia’s unlawful decision severely impairs EPEC’s ability to successfully continue this important work.

RITE President and CEO Derek Lyons issued the following statement:

“Virginia must reverse course and comply with federal law, which requires it to produce full birthdates of every person registered to vote in the Commonwealth to groups like EPEC that request it. In fact, in 2012, a court ordered Virginia to do just that so organizations can better evaluate the accuracy of the state’s voter registration records. Virginia’s sudden policy change is part of a troubling trend of states trying to impair the ability of organizations to assess the currency and accuracy of their voter rolls. Courts have consistently blocked these unlawful attacks on transparency, and we are confident they will do so again here if Virginia does not quickly course correct.”     

See the letter to ELECT here. ##

BACKGROUND:

As we reported in late August:

ELECT’s policy change sent voter-participation groups scrambling across the Commonwealth ahead of the start of early voting. We raised questions about the legality of the policy change.

The full date of birth in the voter lists enables groups to identify eligible voters, and voters with multiple voter registrations, as EPEC has documented.

Nonprofit firm Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against Montgomery County in Maryland in 2017 over a similar policy of removing date and month of registrants’ date of birth from publicly available voting records.

Judicial Watch filed suit under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) “after uncovering that there were more registered voters in Montgomery County than citizens over the age of 18 who could legally register (Judicial Watch vs. Linda H. Lamone, et al. (No. 1:17-cv-02006)).”

In 2020, a federal judge agreed and “ordered the State of Maryland to produce the voter list that includes the registered voters’ date of birth.”

The judge noted in the ruling

Judicial Watch need not demonstrate its need for birth date information in order to facilitate its effort to ensure that the voter rolls are properly maintained. Nevertheless, it has put forward reasonable justifications for requiring birth date information, including using birth dates to find duplicate registrations and searching for voters who remain on the rolls despite “improbable” age.

See the letter that RITE sent to Commissioner Beals and ELECT here. #