Voter access lacking under Youngkin administration, Institute says

Virginia received a D+ grade on an annual report card from a nationwide organization that focuses on voter access on Friday.

The Institute for Responsive Government issued its rebuke of policies enacted by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin over the past year that have negatively affected voter access to the ballot box.

The Institute pointed to Youngkin’s rollback of automatic restoration of voting rights for people who were formerly incarcerated as well as the state’s resignation from the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which helps to maintain up-to-date voter rolls, as the reason for the low grade.

“It’s unfortunate that these couple of things have happened under this governor,” Del. Mark Sickles, chair of the House Election Administration subcommittee, said. “We have a pretty good [voting] system here, I think we got this bad grade for just this last year – some bad headlines in the last year – but none of the laws have changed.”

Christian Martinez, spokesperson for Governor's office, pointed to Youngkin's efforts to educate voters and encourage them to vote early and absentee ahead of the November 2023 election, when asked for a response to the commonwealth's D+ grade.

"Secure Your Vote was a first-of-its-kind early vote effort, specifically to promote early and absentee voting," he said.

Top-tier, bottom grade

Despite its low grade, Virginia is in the top tier of the Institute’s evaluation system.

Top-tier states have a strong set of pro-voter policies in place, while bottom tier states have voting restrictions and anti-voter policies in place. Middle tier states have a mix of both, according to the Institute.

States within each tier were evaluated individually based on legislative actions taken over the last two years and issued a corresponding letter grade. Virginia received the lowest letter grade out of 17 states listed as “top-tier.”

Disinformation prompted departure

“Leaving ERIC was a big mistake,” Del. Mark Sickles, D – Fairfax, said in an interview with USA Today. “A year ago, they were praising how well and how efficient ERIC worked.”

Sickles blamed Youngkin’s decision to leave ERIC on conspiracy theories spread by far-right, so-called “election integrity” groups about the voter roll maintenance organization.

That disinformation campaign was launched in January 2022 by Gateway Pundit, a right-wing conspiracy website, that published an article with incorrect information about ERIC’s security and its purpose in maintaining accurate records. The article also claimed that the organization was funded by billionaire George Soros, according to a report from American Oversight, a nonprofit that focuses on government accountability.

Once Virginia left ERIC, Youngkin’s administration opted to sign individual agreements with a handful of neighboring states which, the Institute for Responsive Government said, utilizes less reliable data sources to keep the voter rolls current.

“They created all of these bilaterals with various states now, and I don’t know how well they’re working. We knew that ERIC worked well. ERIC was cost-effective,” Sickles said.

Virginia withdrew from ERIC in May, just months before 3,400 voters were erroneously removed from rolls ahead of the November election. Sickles said he does not believe there is a direct correlation between the withdrawal from ERIC and the mistaken removal of those voters, however.

Lack of automatic rights restoration led to D grade

The Institute also noted that Youngkin’s discontinuation of a previous executive practice of automatically restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people contributed to the state’s low grade.

Under current restoration of rights practice, people convicted of a felony “return to a default rule of disenfranchisement and in order to have their rights restored, they must file an application which will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis for potential restoration,” the Institute stated.

Democrats in the General Assembly are working to pass an amendment that would enshrine automatic voter rights restoration in Virginia’s constitution, but that process could take years.

“We’re one of two states that don’t have automatic restoration of rights when a person has fulfilled their duty to society and we’re trying to fix that,” Sickles said. Kentucky is the other state without automatic voter restoration, he said.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Institute for Responsive Government issues D+ grade to Virginia