Virginia

Virginia’s Faulty Voting Machines in the 2014 Midterm Elections

Election Law Society · November 7, 2014 ·

By Jonathan Gonzalez

The 2014 midterm elections on November 4th culminated in major victories for the Republican Party, which succeeded in wresting control of the United States Senate from the Democrats by slim margins. Among the Republican Party Senate hopefuls, Ed Gillespie made waves in Virginia on election night, and came within a percentage point of ousting popular Democratic incumbent, Mark Warner. Warner, a former governor of Virginia, came about 16,000 votes shy of suffering a major upset. [Read more…] about Virginia’s Faulty Voting Machines in the 2014 Midterm Elections

William & Mary Law’s Winning Map May Prove Useful as Virginia Legislators Head Back to the Drawing Board

Election Law Society · October 27, 2014 ·

By Staff Writer

Back in 2011, a team of William & Mary Law students won first place in the Governor/Commission Division for the U.S. Congressional Map category in the Virginia Redistricting Competition. The project may have started merely as an experiment to see whether students might be able to create useful maps using new redistricting software and real data on Virginia voters. But now that a federal court has declared Virginia’s 3^rd Congressional District unconstitutional, the map designed by William & Mary students has taken on a whole new level of importance in the drawing of fair and just Congressional districts in Virginia. [Read more…] about William & Mary Law’s Winning Map May Prove Useful as Virginia Legislators Head Back to the Drawing Board

What a Pain for Payne: Virginia’s Racial Packing Lawsuit

Election Law Society · October 18, 2014 ·

By Ashley Eick

As a slew of lawyers scurried around trying to organize their maps and evidence, Judge Payne sat calmly in the center of a three-judge panel. In late May of 2014, high-powered lawyers boiled down mountains of statistics, diagrams, and expert opinions into a two-day bench trial. They needed to convince Judge Payne and two Fourth Circuit judges to rule that the General Assembly primarily used race to concoct Virginia’s fantastically shaped 3rd congressional district. Against all odds, they succeeded.

Although all the attention and spotlight has been on Alabama, Virginia has been facing its own mudslinging, partisan wrangling, racial packing lawsuit. Three plaintiffs – Dawn Curry Page, Gloria Personhuballah and James Farkas – have challenged the constitutionality of Virginia’s 3^rd congressional district as a racial gerrymander in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. They allege that the General Assembly “packed” black voters into the 3^rd district, Virginia’s only minority-majority district, to dilute minority influence in the surrounding predominantly white districts. In the enacted plan, the black voting-age population increased from 53.1 percent to 56.3 percent while it decreased in every adjacent district. Furthermore, African-Americans “accounted for over 90% of the added voting age residents.” [Read more…] about What a Pain for Payne: Virginia’s Racial Packing Lawsuit

It’s Not All Bad: Felony Disenfranchisement and Preclearance Aftermath in Virginia

Election Law Society · November 25, 2013 ·

by Student Contributor

On June 25, 2013, the levee finally broke. After earlier hinting that it would, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the formula for determining which jurisdictions required preclearance under the Voting Rights Act.

Predictably, pandemonium ensued. Some commentators forecasted that states would revert to practices that result in further restrictions on who can vote. An example in Virginia is a new voter ID law that will now go forward unchecked by the Department of Justice thanks to the Court’s decision in Shelby declaring the VRA preclearance formula unconstitutional. [Read more…] about It’s Not All Bad: Felony Disenfranchisement and Preclearance Aftermath in Virginia

Trash or Treasure?: Concerns With SB1008’s Protection of Democracy in Virginia and How They Were Addressed

Election Law Society · November 22, 2013 ·

by Student Contributor

They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. In this case, it’s another man’s voter registration form. A month before the presidential election of 2012, a store owner saw a man throw a trash bag into the store’s recycling bin. Upon investigating, the store owner discovered that the man had thrown away several completed voter registration forms. The man was a contractor with the Republican Party helping to register voters in Virginia. The contractor was charged with thirteen counts of destruction of voter registration applications, disclosure of voter registration information, and obstruction of justice.