—Judge Declines to Stop EO on Ballot Security; Postal Service Begins Rule-Making

—Virginians’ Vanishing Right to Challenge Illegal Voters

—Download a New Tool to Track Virginia’s Controversial Election Laws

Election security groups say they are heartened to see a Washington, D.C., district judge decline to block President Trump’s March 31 Executive Order that requires the United States Post Office to enhance mail-in ballot security.

Judge Carl Nichols’ order is a win for the security-related measures in the EO, entitled: “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.”

Within days of the March 31 EO, Democrat senators and aligned activist groups rushed into court asking for an injunction, claiming theories about harm and that it was likely unconstitutional.

The judge denied their motion, ruling they failed to show they could succeed on the merits, and that plaintiffs have not suffered any harm at present, much less harm that is “certain,” “great,” and “imminent.”

“Given that the Executive Order does not command Plaintiffs to do anything, and that no agency has yet acted pursuant to the Order in a way that could harm Plaintiffs, they have not suffered any harm at present,” Judge Carl Nichols wrote in the May 28 ruling.

See the ruling here.

This is huge, said Cleta Mitchell of the Election Integrity Network, during an appearance on the Warroom Podcast Friday. “This judge applied the same rules of standing that are never applied to left-wing groups.”

It is important to point out, Mitchell added, that election mail is a special kind of mail to the U.S.P.S.

The EO orders the U.S.P.S. to promote regulations that ensure the mail-in ballots are delivered according to statutes that govern the federal postal service. This ensures they are not delivered to commercial addresses, abandoned warehouses, or other addresses prohibited from receiving mail-in ballots.

The March 31 EO provides actions that the U.S. Postal Service can take to assure mail-in ballots are transiting with secure tracking codes as required by federal statute.

The EO also directs agencies such as the Social Security Administration (SSA), in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, to help states verify identity and federal election voter eligibility by providing them lists of eligible voters.

More challenges to the EO are underway; for now, the judge’s ruling frees up the U.S.P.S. to start rule-making to ensure that mail-in ballots are secured.

It got the ball rolling today by proposing new rules “that would require states to provide voter-level data on mail-in ballots in federal elections, one day after a federal judge declined to immediately block President Donald Trump’s executive order tightening mail-in voting rules,” as CNBC reported.

It directs the federal postal service to launch mail envelope design reviews to help states comply with U.S.P.S. mailing standards, including barcode placement.

It also promotes a rule that would establish a process by which:

(1) states (including authorized election officials and their mail service providers) will notify the Postal Service of the individuals to whom they are mailing a mail-in or absentee ballot, along with the unique barcode applied to the outbound and return ballot mail envelope for such individuals such that the name and barcode of the voter will be included on a Mail-In and Absentee Participation List;

(2) states (including authorized election officials and their mail service providers) may thereafter add to or modify the list of enrollees until the last day that ballots may be mailed out to individuals under state law;

(3) the Postal Service will provide to each state’s chief election official a final State-Specific Mail-In and Absentee Participation List for each state compiling the names of all enrolled individuals in such state, along with the barcodes associated with such individuals’ mail-in or absentee ballots.

More in our next report. The U.S.P.S. rule-making notice is here. #

Virginians’ Vanishing Right to Challenge Illegal Voters

While Virginians were dealing with a rushed referendum in March and April on redistricting — which the VA Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutional — the governor was signing a flurry of controversial election bills into law.

Chief among them is HB 640. As of July, it eliminates the process by which any voter could challenge, in a polling place on the day of an election, the right of any other voter to cast a ballot. As of July 1st, anyone who makes good-faith challenges to an elector will have to go to a Richmond court, and hire lawyers.

The impact emboldens unlawful balloting by removing a long-standing right in election laws that allow citizens to challenge whether their votes are being diluted by an illegal or ineligible elector.

Left-wing groups have targeted the long-standing process of challenging a voter’s eligibility by accusing any good-faith challenge to Jim Crow-era abuses that the Voting Rights Act abolishes. Their narrative is that voter fraud is “exceedingly” rare, while ignoring the growing cases of fraudulent balloting, and noncitizens with voting histories.

(See EPEC Team’s documentation of the more than 7,000 Virginia noncitizens who “self-identified” as ineligible to be on the voter rolls in the past three years. Before they were removed from the rolls, thousands racked up a history of felony voting violations that disenfranchised Virginia voters.)

EPEC Team Voter News

Latest List of Noncitizens Who Vote in VA

By Jonathan Lareau, volunteer Chief Technology Officer, EPEC Team…

Read more

4 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment

Today, with noncitizens automatically flowing from the Dept. of Motor Vehicles’ system onto voter rolls in 19 states, the new Virginia law (HB 640) further curtails citizens’ rights to question whether a voter is eligible to cast a ballot. By removing deterrence measures, the law creates conditions that embolden election fraud — while eroding citizens’ right to be a part of their election process.

To find out more about the new laws that impact our elections and how elections are managed, EPEC Team encourages readers to download an Election Bill Tracker that was curated by the election security group Virginia Fair Elections.

Election experts Andi Bayer and Susan Hogge spent months following the Virginia Assembly’s debate and passage of the bills. They compiled the information into an easy-to-understand spreadsheet that is available to download, and will be updating the information on regular intervals as a service to the Commonwealth.

Download the Spreadsheet Here

The tracker list and new bills arrive amid a growing list of inconsistent appellate court rulings about the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) — which states, including Virginia, are using to block or redefine what are “reasonable” voter-list activities.

Inconsistent and even distorted interpretations of the NVRA are also leading to a troubling trend: voter-roll information that is increasingly opaque to citizen oversight, while dual standards of voter-roll maintenance proliferate among states.

A filing by the Dept. of Justice, which asked the Supreme Court to review an NVRA case involving Arizona, is one among many examples. Thanks to unclear rulings about the 90-day “safe harbor” rule, many states allow noncitizens to remain on the voter rolls leading up to elections. In Arizona, two laws now govern the state’s elections.

“The DOJ made its argument on May 26 in a brief urging the high court to grant the petition in the case of Republican National Committee (RNC) v. Mi Familia Vota,” Zero Hedge noted.

The DOJ argues in its brief that the NVRA’s restrictions on taking individuals’ names off the list of eligible voters in the 90 days preceding an election “do not apply to noncitizens who were never eligible to register in the first place.

The motion for review refers to a prior ruling by the Ninth Circuit as “badly mistaken,” which deepens a split among federal courts of appeals, and “risks significant harm,” said Hashim Mooppan, filing as acting solicitor general.

Using the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit, “a State could never remove a noncitizen from its voter rolls once registered,” he said. “That cannot be correct and cries out for reversal,” Mooppan said, urging the Supreme Court to grant the RNC’s petition.

Inconsistent rulings by courts regarding the NVRA have also been used to curtail transparency in voter rolls that are supposed to be made public, such as withholding the month and date of a voter’s birthday as part of their registration.

The overall trend is that courts are allowing voter-list maintenance records, which are critical to public trust in elections, to become the sole province of state election officials — without any oversight, not even by the DOJ, as some courts have ruled.

EPEC Team and its partners are committed to raising the public’s knowledge of the impact of these Virginia laws and how they related to national trends. We urge readers to download the tracker to understand the impact of trusted elections. More in coming reports. #

Updates last version to correct reference to HB 640.

Amid today’s ceremonies, flags flown at half-staff from sunrise to noon, sacred rituals to their valor, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the sound of taps in the air, EPEC Team joins in remembering their devotion, including Gold Star families who carry on.

May their service and sacrifice never be forgotten, and fortify our commitment to liberty as well as our mission of free, fair, and trusted elections.

And may they rest in peace. #

As a result, VA Assembly Democrats will not be able to draw new congressional maps from the current 6-5 (D-R) configuration to the 10-1 (D-R) map proposals.

The Friday ruling by the Supreme Court of Virginia is a huge win in the redistricting wars for Republican lawmakers who filed multiple legal challenges amid Democrats’ rush to send a constitutional referendum to the voters ahead of the midterm elections.

The high court agreed. The ruling is here.

“You cannot violate the Constitution to change the Constitution,” said VA Sen. Ryan McDougle, one of the plaintiffs.

In a statement, Attorney General Jay Jones claimed the court’s ruling was partisan and “put politics over the rule of law by issuing a ruling that overturns the April 21st special election on redistricting.”

However, attorneys representing the Commonwealth before SCOVA on April 27th admitted that the vote results had no bearing on the legal issues that were raised before the Special Election started.

The decision affirmed that.

On the issues before us in this case, we hold that the ultimate vote margin plays no role in the analytics of our judicial review of the constitutionality of the pre-election constitutional amendment process.

More than one million Virginians had cast a ballot during early voting in 2025 when the Democrat-majority assembly passed the first of its constitutional referendum bills; they claimed it was still an “intervening” election per the requirements for changing the constitution because it happened before Election Day, April 21.

It was a key point in the legal challenges. The high court took issue with their argument that early voting really didn’t count as an election.

The opinion added:

With that perspective, imagine one of the over one million Virginians who had voted in person before Election Day in 2025 walking into a polling place. The voter says to the officer of election, “I am here to vote in the election.” The officer of election responds, “we are not conducting an election here.” “But that’s why I am here,” the voter replies. “Maybe so, but let me explain,” the officer of election insists, “you can vote in the election, but we are not conducting an election today. Elections are only conducted on Election Day.

Reaction:

“The Virginia Supreme Court just cooked ‘the Lobster,’ and with it, the ambitions of Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democratic establishment,” wrote Jonathan Turley, who teaches law at George Washington University Law School.

“All is left is a lingering sense of betrayal by GOP and independent voters who faced erasure from the gerrymander.”

Turley was referring to the proposed map’s Congressional District 7, which became notorious for its extreme gerrymander in the shape of a lobster, with Fairfax County populations as the tail.

The ruling means Republicans hang on to four seats in the redistricting wars that have intensified with Democrats since the Supreme Court’s landmark 6-3 decision to strike down racially drawn congressional districts and narrow the reading of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

At least two of Virginia’s 11 congressional districts are still deploying the VRA to draw congressional districts by race, which the Supreme Court has ruled is unconstitutional discrimination.

It is highly likely Virginia will be facing more litigation in the near future to address those maps as groups and even the Dept. of Justice look at the next steps.

Southern states are already preparing to re-draw congressional maps. The Tennessee legislature just redrew a racially gerrymandered seat to give Republicans a likely 9-0 seat advantage.

In all Republicans are looking to pick up maybe 14-16 congressional seats from redistricting while Democrats are looking to re-draw maps that have already been gerrymandered in the extreme.

In Virginia’s case, the high court stood by the strict requirements of the Commonwealth’s constitution — and its own role in the 2021 congressional maps — when it ruled the Democrats had not followed them in their rush to redistrict.

Thomas McCarthy, one of the attorneys for the Republican challengers, appeared to score key points with the VA high court during oral arguments when he pointed out that the assembly Democrats passed a constitutional referendum using a Special Session that began in 2024, in the middle of 2025 election early voting, without sufficient 90-day notice.

“It is not how the process is supposed to work,” he added.

“It is the people, the people of the Commonwealth – the voters — who possess the power to amend or modify the constitution,” he told the justices. “And denying them the knowledge that this proposed amendment was coming through, should undermine the whole process.”

#

Will the whole thing be thrown out as a lower court has already ruled?

That’s the speculation among legal and even political observers after SCOVA’s one-sentence order Tuesday denying the Attorney General’s motion to move ahead with new congressional maps while the high court reviews multiple legal challenges.

SCOVA’s brief order would mean that Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley’s April 22nd ruling, which halted certification of the election and declared it void, stays while the state high court reviews constitutional challenges from 2025 and 2026.

Former House Delegate and attorney Tim Anderson wrote:

“On a scale of 1-10 (1 being very bad and 10 being very good) - I would rate this at a 187. The Democrats cannot draw maps until the vote has been certified. By allowing the results to be blocked - the Dems are dead in the water until the court rules otherwise. Certification was supposed to happen this Friday.”

Former VA Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who also served in the Virginia state Senate, let slip some optimism, too.

“In the 'tea leaves' category, this is as positive a 'tea leaf' as one might imagine!

“If #SCOVA thought they would let the referendum stand, then logically they would have lifted the injunction on counting & certifying the votes. Caveat: this is still just tea leaves, but it's a good sign.”

Cuccinelli said he was a little bit surprised that, during oral arguments before the Supreme Court of VA Monday on the constitutional challenges, most of the questions were from two conservative justices on the seven-seat panel, Stephen R. McCullough and Wesley G. Russell Jr.

It may be that even liberal justices are probably “concerned at the rather brazen nature of the General Assembly’s behavior here” in how they passed the referendum.

One of the justices observed that constitutional amendments can last generations and are not easily reversed in subsequent elections.

You can say a lot of things, Cuccinelli added, but you cannot say the General Assembly “strictly adhered” to Article XII, Sec. 1 requirements in passing the constitutional amendment referendum.

The Special Election vote would allow a 6-5 (D-R) congressional map to be re-drawn to a 10-1 (D-R) gerrymandered map ahead of midterm elections.

Justice Russell asked the Solicitor General for Virginia: does the “yes” vote on the referendum question matter to the legal issues before the court? The answer: no.

Appeals of the April 22nd ruling by Judge Hurley are still reportedly pending after Tuesday’s stay. But those could be moot — if the Supreme Court of Virginia agrees with the arguments already put forth during the April 27 hearing.

By the time the Democrat-majority General Assembly voted on “first passage” of the referendum in October of 2025 during early voting, more than one million voters had already cast a ballot. The 90-day notification rule, after the so-called “second passage” constitutional requirement, ran weeks short of the start of early voting on March 6, 2026. That, too, came up for review during oral arguments Monday.

Thomas McCarthy, one of the attorneys for the Republican challengers, including state Sen. Ryan McDougle, said passing a constitutional referendum using a Special Session that began in 2024, in the middle of 2025 election early voting, without sufficient 90-day notice, is not how the process is supposed to work.

“It is the people, the people of the Commonwealth – the voters — who possess the power to amend or modify the constitution,” he told the justices. “And denying them the knowledge that this proposed amendment was coming through, should undermine the whole process.”

Never in the history of the Commonwealth has a General Assembly passed a constitutional amendment referendum this way, he noted.

The audio of the April 27 hearing before the Supreme Court of VA is here:

(The news comes as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on April 29 to narrow Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which ends racial gerrymandering in states. It may also impact the current 6-5 [D-R] congressional maps in Virginia.)

The pause to the certification of the April 21 Special Election arrives amid a swirl of legal challenges in this rushed election. It has been mired in confusion over the wording of the ballot question, even confusion over the results that EPEC Team has been documenting. More on that in our next report. #

EPEC Team Voter News

Back to Court for VA's Confused Special Election

Virginia’s April 21 Special Election on redistricting is far from settled — even before the Virginia Supreme Court takes up legal challenges to the vote after a Tazewell County Judge ruled that the referendum itself is unconstitutional and void…

Read more

a month ago · 3 likes · Erin Marie Joyce

The unofficial numbers from the election itself have not been settling in either.

As of Saturday, April 25th, the “yes” votes for whether to allow Assembly Democrats to redraw congressional seats from 6-5 (D-R) to 10-1 (D-R) had increased by a few percentage points to 51.6% of the vote (1.59 million).

The “no” votes in the tally have now decreased by a few percentage points to 48.39% of the vote (1.49 million).

This aligns with data we are tracking that shows early voting totals much lower in the final tallies, according to unofficial data from the Department of Elections.

Compare to results posted Wed. April 22nd:

It may all be moot if the Supreme Court of Virginia agrees with a Tazewell Circuit Court judge who ruled Wednesday that the whole thing was illegal, unconstitutional and void. See the ruling here.

The ballot question itself (whether to “restore fairness” to help Democrats gerrymander a map that wipes out four Republican-held congressional seats) is also on the docket.

Tazewell Circuit Court Judge Jack Hurley ruled the question itself violated the Submission Clause of the Virginia Constitution because “the ballot language proposed in HB 1384 submits to voters a flagrantly misleading question to the voters, and because the ballot language did not accurately describe the proposed amendment as it was passed by the General Assembly.”

It is among the legal challenges before the Supreme Court of Virginia Monday.

We also see confusion in the way the results are being tallied — more so than the usual small differences we have observed in past years between early voting and final results during Virginia elections.

Jon Lareau, who volunteers as EPEC’s Executive Director and CTO, has been tracking the Department of Elections’ summary data results and running the numbers. (They can be viewed in a “JSON” file format, available at the bottom of its “stats” page under “media export.”)

He tallied up all of the results from each of the voting precincts across Virginia’s 133 localities — then compared that number with just locality-level results in the data.

He sees about a 67,364-ballot difference in the “yes” votes and a 26,930-ballot difference in the “no” votes when we add up the results by Precincts vs. Localities.

Confusing Results & Other Anomalies

The 70,000 vote variance we saw for Chesterfield’s tallies that EPEC Senior Analyst Rick Naigle discovered this week has been corrected.

We are told that someone loaded election results twice and apparently did not catch the error until groups began pointing it out.

(Your humble correspondent appeared on the Warroom Podcast Friday to explain the issues in the election data. See the segment here.)

This was a rushed Special Election; and the data quality throughout Early Voting as well as the many variances in the election night tallies shows it.

EPEC Team’s analysis of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from general registrars, logged by Board member Chris Rohland, shows that General Registrars across the Commonwealth were in a very short time-frame for the start of early voting on March 6th. The assembly ignored the 90-day notice that the constitution requires for this kind of referendum.

Here are some samples of issues that EPEC Team analysts documented throughout the 45-day early voting period:

• Ballot receipt dates of 2022 during the 2026 Special Election.

• Early in-person ballots recorded after the early voting period ended (600).

• Ballot counts decreasing without explanation.

• Ballots not going through scanners properly (Suffolk County).

• Problems with pollbooks not working or going down during voting.

• Ballot-scanning machines (known as DS-300s or DS-200s) not showing a proper zero count when voting begins or resumes. (The zero count is critical to ensuring how many ballots are counted each day, in addition to the ongoing count.)

• Mystery voters showing up on the Comprehensive Absentee Application List (CAAL) with no ID match in the Registered Voter List.

• Lareau documented 6,109 “approved” records on the CAAL list of permanent absentee applications with no existing record in the RVL, the official list of voter registrations for the Commonwealth. See his analysis here.

• Naigle observed ballot data showing a date-stamp of November, 2025.

  This suggests the locality did not conduct Logic & Accuracy testing on its machines prior to the start of early voting in March.

• Naigle also saw ballots processed with dates outside of voting times.

• He found an 11-point difference in the rejection rates of presumed R vs. presumed D ballots (based on light modeling and primary election voting history). His analysis showed it was not random.

• Using statewide data, he found that lean-R ballots show a higher probability (statistically significant) of their ballots being rejected into “unmarked” status. See the report here and the differences depending on mail-ballot volumes.

Back to Legal Challenges

The sloppy nature of the April 21 Constitutional referendum election data itself may not be the main factor before the Supreme Court of Virginia when it hears oral arguments from Republican assembly members Monday.

But the General Assembly’s failure to observer the 90-day statute before Early Voting started is. It would be fair to call the sloppy data quality with the Special Election that we observed a symptom of Assembly Democrats’ rush to re-draw congressional maps before the midterm elections.

“There is no question that this resolution shredded state law and tradition,” wrote Constitutional scholar and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley on his blog:

“The question is whether the justices themselves have the courage to demand more from the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Former Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli believes the Republican challengers have a strong case.

“There are four clear violations of the state constitution here,” he told the Washington Times. Democrat Attorney General Jay Jones (and the outside legal team he brought in for the appeal) would have to “win on all four to make this stick,” he added.

“I don’t think they can.”

Cuccinelli laid out the four key challenges in an X post:

He wrote:

The passage [of the referendum bill] was invalid. The amendment was taken up during a special session convened in 2024 for budget purposes. The General Assembly’s own call to the Governor (under Art. IV, §6 and Art. V, §5) and its governing resolution (HJR 6001) limited the session’s scope. Expanding it to include a constitutional amendment on redistricting required a two-thirds vote that never occurred. A Tazewell County judge found this action “void, ab initio.”

Art. XII, §1 requires that after first passage, a proposed amendment be “referred to the General Assembly at its first regular session held after the next general election of members of the House of Delegates.” An election must intervene between first and second passage. Here, first passage occurred during an election cycle — not before an intervening one.

Art. XII, §1 requires the amendment be submitted to voters “not sooner than ninety days after final passage by the General Assembly.” The timeline from second passage to the April 21 vote did not satisfy this requirement.

The fourth hurdle? The maps themselves:

Art. II, §6 requires that “every electoral district shall be composed of contiguous and compact territory.” The proposed congressional maps violate this contiguity requirement (rather badly).

Arguments are slated for 9:00 AM Monday, April 27th. Observers say the full court will likely convene. Live audio stream is here:

https://www.courts.state.va.us/courts/scv/dockets/scv_oral_session_livestream

Once more, The Maps:

Summary of ballot types:

See how your locality voted (in the unofficial results) in our interactive map here:

https://epec.info/virginia-2026-special-election-page/

More in our next report. ##

• Updates prior article for style and sentence clarity, and to include more maps.

The not yet certified results would allow Assembly Democrats to take a 6-5 (D-R) congressional map and redistrict Virginia’s 11 seats to a 10-1 (D-R) map despite the Commonwealth’s 48-52 partisan split.

However, a Tazewell District Court Judge also ruled Wednesday that the referendum results were void because they were conducted illegally, and declared the vote itself unconstitutional.

The ruling enjoins Virginia’s election officials from certifying the election results. Democrat Attorney General Jay Jones said he would file an appeal.

The latest ruling adds more legal briefs to the ongoing litigation before the Supreme Court of Virginia over the rushed nature of the referendum, which usually is conducted after two “intervening” elections.

Early voting was already underway in 2025 when the Democrat-led assembly began the process to change Virginia’s constitution to re-draw the congressional maps instead of an independent commission that voters approved in 2020.

Legal challenges are also slated for review over the confusing ballot question.

As for the results, EPEC Team has also found problems in how the summary tallies are being reported in data feeds that the media uses to report the results.

The early voting data from the Department of Elections is not lining up with the early voting results in the Election Night data feed from the Department of Elections as well.

Unofficially, the Department of Elections is reporting on its website:

Yes: 1,575,316 (51.45%)

No: 1,486,227 (48.55%)

That’s a difference of 89,089 ballots.

How many of those are from Election Day and how many are from the Early Voting period?

Early analysis shows that totals from Early Voting tallies in the Daily Absentee List (DAL) are not translating into similar summary data totals from Election Night.

For example, Chesterfield County shows a 71,762 ballot-difference after Election Night that does not reconcile with Daily Absentee List (DAL) data for that locality, according to EPEC Senior Data Analyst Rick Naigle:

“There are a few other Localities with added ballots, but most Localities have fewer ballots showing in the [Election Night Summary Data Feed] than in the [Daily Absentee Early Voting List] DAL. The range is from 1,450 fewer (Hanover County) to 71,762 more (Chesterfield County).”

Naigle compared overall summary results from Election Night to results from Early Voting tallies for In-Person and By Mail. He sees 68,439 more Early Voting ballots being reported in the Election Night data summary compared to the actual Early Voting numbers that we monitor.

In other words, the Department of Elections is now reporting significantly more ballots from early voting than were originally reported during the 45-day period.

We are checking to see if “unmarked” ballots that needed a “cure” were addressed and added into the final tallies. For now, the delta is about well over 60,000 ballots that do not align with Early Voting data in the Election Night summary data feed.

EPEC Team’s Jon Lareau also tallied up local results from the Department of Elections Election Night data feed, which is formatted in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), a data-interchange format.

The feed can be downloaded from the Department of Elections’ website here (see “Media Export” link at bottom of page).

He found that local results in the JSON feed do not align with the numbers on the Department of Elections website.

For example, when he adds local results, the “no” votes are in a slim lead. When he adds up the overall tallies in the same feed, the numbers align with “yes” squeaking out more votes.

Another data point: When we sort the Department of Elections’ unofficial data from Election Night to only view Mail-in Ballots, we see 215,915 “yes” ballots to 82,278 “no” ballots.

We have been tracking these numbers closely throughout the election, such as whether R-leaning ballots were being rejected (needing “cure”) at a rate much higher than D-leaning ballots, and in patterns that are not random.

(Voters who requested mail-in ballots that may or may not have been received, and also showed up on Election Day, are allowed to cast a provisional ballot. Those are to be adjudicated by localities during their canvas this week.)

Our Takeaway:

Summary data from last night’s election do not align with early voting data (from the DAL).

We are still running the numbers and will update in our next report.

For now, you can see how localities voted according to unofficial Department of Elections data here: Yes and No Votes by Locality.

Many were close, but we shaded by which voted yes and which voted no. The interactive map shows the unofficial numbers.

See the unofficial results here: https://enr.elections.virginia.gov/results/public/virginia/elections/2026-April-21-Special/stats. #

Story was updated on April 23 to include news of Tazewell Circuit Court ruling.

—Turnout is Way beyond 2025, Heading for 2024 Rates

—Unusually High Rejection Rates for Republican-leaning Mail-ins

The turnout surge in Virginia’s controversial Special Election over whether to “temporarily” allow Assembly Democrats to gerrymander congressional maps from the current 6-5 (D-R) to 10-1 (D-R) shows no signs of abating in the unofficial data.

Record mail-in ballot return volumes may explain high rejection rates of Republican-leaning ballots that EPEC Team Senior Data Analyst Rick Naigle has documented.

He also sees big fluctuations in rejection rates based on volume of mail-ins.

Naigle notes:

His latest analysis raises questions as to whether localities are able to manage the volume of mail-in ballots with consistency before they are prepared for tabulation.

Just over 1.08 million ballots are in issued (“still out”) or countable (“mail-ins” + “on machine”) status, close to 1/3rd of the 3.4 million ballots cast in the entire 2025 gubernatorial election.

Overall, we are at about 18% voter turnout as the early voting period concludes on Saturday, April 18th before the April 21 vote.

As of April 15, just under 150,000 mail-in ballots were in “issued” status, not yet returned. They are coming into many localities in huge spikes, which we documented here last week.

Volume Comparisons:

Mail-in (est.) differences:

2025: 208,143

2026: 257,099

On Machine (est.) differences:

2025: 442,408

2026: 726,423

Since last Saturday, localities have opened satellite voting areas through the last day of early voting on April 18 before Election Day on April 21.

At this rate, the 2026 numbers are racing to reach similar numbers as the 1.3 million ballots in the 2024 election that were in “countable’ status at this stage of early voting.

Wild Fluctuations in Rejection Rates of R-Leaning Ballots

Using Daily Absentee List (DAL) of unofficial voting data from Virginia’s Dept. of Elections, and ChatGPT-5 Mini to help compute statistical analysis, Naigle reviewed acceptance (“Marked” & “Pre-Processed”) and rejection (“Unmarked”) rates on mail-in ballots over a 25-day period.

• He looked at Portsmouth and Virginia Beach City localities’ mail-in ballot data, and analyzed statewide volumes.

• In local processing, he found an 11-point difference in the rejection rates of presumed R vs. presumed D ballots (based on light modeling and primary election voting history).

• Using statewide data, he found that lean-R ballots show a higher probability (statistically significant) of their ballots being rejected into “unmarked” status.

• This could mean that election staff are likely finding errors (“material omissions”) on the security ballot envelope and putting it aside for a “cure.”

• Voters whose ballots are “unmarked” are supposed to be contacted within three days to address the issues. They can either request a new mail-in (and take their chances with the postal service), or turn in the mail ballot and vote on machine.

• Naigle finds no statistically significant rejection rate differences between known D ballots and unknown voter history.

• His take:

  “The overall ballot rejection rate is higher on days where the total number of ballots received is lowest. That is statistically significant — which means there is some kind of ‘special cause’ for this finding. It is not random.”

See selected slides from his full report below:

Download the full PDF Analysis Here:

Higher Rejection Rates for R-Leaning Ballots Found in Special Election

More in our next report.

For now, here’s a tally of other unique ballot statuses we are watching:

• Track your locality, precinct, or city with Daily DAL summary data here.

• Find your polling place or check your registration here.

As one of the ads promoting a “no” vote on the maps says, this is no time to sit out an election. Get out to vote! #

—Big Spikes in Mail-ins Returned in One Day

—RNC Sues Over Overseas Voters

Half of Mail-in Ballots Still ‘Out’ — Big Spikes Incoming

By the time this special election wraps the counting on whether to allow Assembly Democrats to draw partisan congressional maps to a gerrymandered 10-1 (D-R) [“yes”] or to keep the current 6-5 (D-R) maps [“no”], Virginia may see presidential-year numbers of mail-in ballots returned.

That’s the assessment of election experts tracking the mail-in ballots that have been “issued” (mailed out) and the sheer volume of ballots being returned so far.

CURRENT TALLIES

April 9, 2026

With less than two weeks left in early voting that concludes on April 18 ahead of the April 21 Special Election, Daily Absentee List (DAL) tallies show 953,614 Virginians have voted on machine, returned a mail-in ballot, or requested a mail-in absentee ballot.

That’s about 16% of the active voting population of just over 6 million.

Countable ballots: 778,338

Breakout averages to:

Mail-in: 237,512

On-Machine: 540,815

Notable: More than half of the mail-in ballots requested (175,276) are still in “issued” status — which means they are still out.

If we tally up a similar number of voting days from 2025 to correlate with 2026 early voting tallies so far, we see about a 5% increase at this stage of early voting.

The mail-in numbers have already exceeded 2025 numbers, when compared to similar voting days, and could even exceed 2024 mail-in rates by the end of voting.

More Ballot Spikes

EPEC Team analysts have been tracking one-day spikes of mail-in ballots returned to general registrars’ offices since early voting began in March.

For example, Fairfax County logged over 8,000 mail-in ballots returned in one day, and thousands during a week alone in March.

EPEC Team Senior Analyst Rick Naigle also observed over a thousand returned in Norfolk City in one day, as well as thousands in one day in Chesterfield and Virginia Beach City localities, for example.

The numbers are outside the norm of ballot-processing rates observed for years, and carry hallmarks of ballot-harvesting operations. Although the practice is controversial, Virginia allows “anyone chosen by the voter” to return ballots, with “certain categories of returners that may be excluded.”

Based on some light modeling of the data, EPEC Team sees more Democrat-aligned ballots in some of the spikes — although Republican-aligned voters appear to be returning enough to generate spikes in the data as well. The majority of the preferences on these ballots is unknown. See two of the examples below:

Fairfax County’s outsized election data carries a touch of irony, given its outsized influence in the proposed new congressional maps.

No fewer than five of the proposed new congressional districts use Fairfax County populations to achieve the Democrats’ 10-1 gerrymandered maps.

Indeed, “Don’t Fairfax Me” has become a political slogan used by groups opposed to changing the Constitution “temporarily,” which would enable Fairfax County populations to dominate congressional representation across Old Dominion.

They say some 40% of Republican and independent voters would be locked out of selecting their representatives in the U.S. House because of Fairfax County’s inclusion in their voting districts. That is, if the “yes” vote prevails (and the Supreme Court declines to agree with challenges that say the election itself was illegally construed).

Fairfax County’s mail-in ballot rates are also driving the record numbers.

In the chart from April 8, Fairfax has tallied just under 40,000 mail-ins (shown in green), which is more than on-machine voters in the day’s overall tally of 75,664 “countable” ballots.

EPEC Team is tracking whether election officials are maintaining orderly processing — with so many thousands of mail-ins coming into the system at once amid the rushed nature of this Special Election. For example:

• Mystery voters are showing up on the Comprehensive Absentee Application List (CAAL) who have no ID match in the Registered Voter List. Currently, we see about a thousand of these records, and are digging into the data to find out why.

• Last month, EPEC Team’s Executive Director and CTO, Jon Lareau, documented 6,109 “approved” records on the CAAL list of permanent absentee applications with no existing record in the RVL, the official list of voter registrations for the Commonwealth. See his analysis here.

• Virginia’s recent monthly update service to the statewide registered voter lists shows over 10,000 “reactivated” voters who had previously sat out at least two federal election cycles but have sprung into action for this election.

• EPEC Team Senior Analyst Rick Naigle has also observed ballot data with a date-stamp of November, 2025. This suggests the locality did not conduct Logic & Accuracy testing on its machines prior to early voting — or that whoever did the testing missed a key data point prior to the start of the 2026 Special Election.

• Naigle also sees ballots processed with dates outside of voting times.

• Some “ballot receipt dates” are showing up on Saturdays and Sundays. Are General Registrars doing this without observers?

EPEC Team is also cross-checking other statuses as shown below:

With some $38 million (and counting) of Democrat-aligned campaign funds sloshing into Virginia to push gerrymandered maps ahead of the midterms — and Republicans having raised about half of that in their fight against the re-drawn maps, it stands to reason that activist groups would be helping voters return ballots.

The DAL data shows that. More in our next report. #

RNC Sues Virginia to Stop Never-Resident Voters

Per RITE’s press release:

"Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections PAC (RITE PAC) has sued the Virginia State Board of Elections and several state and local election officials in state court. RITE PAC joins the Republican National Committee and a concerned voter in challenging a state law that allows U.S. citizens born abroad to vote in Virginia elections based solely on their parent’s registration in the state.

The complaint is here. It is requesting that the court block election officials from registering or accepting ballots from individuals who have never resided in Virginia.

An estimated 20,000 overseas citizens are registered to vote in Virginia. The majority that have never lived in the Commonwealth can use their parents’ address in Virginia to register and cast a ballot. RITE PAC’s lawsuit says it is unconstitutional.

“The Virginia Constitution draws a clear line: voting is reserved to residents of the Commonwealth and of the precinct in which they vote,” said RITE PAC President and CEO Justin Riemer. “That requirement cannot be overridden by statute or replaced with a legal fiction based on someone else’s residency.”

Other lawsuits in states such as North Carolina have challenged a carve-out on voting rules for never-resident U.S. citizens under the UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) statute that RITE PAC is challenging.

As for the election data, we see some 4,902 ballots listed as “overseas” voters (separate from overseas military) in the current DAL data, with some 3,388 in “issued” status and 1,274 in “countable” status thus far. More in our next report. #

• Track your locality, precinct, or city with Daily DAL summary data here.

• Track Ballot Status and Early Voting Tallies from the DAL here.

As one of the ads promoting a “no” vote on the maps says, this is no time to sit out an election. Find your polling place or check your registration here.

And get out to vote! #

The Executive Order of March 31 is the second major EO on election security that President Donald Trump issued to address years of lax voter-roll maintenance in many states.

It directs the U.S. Postal Service to begin rule-making to “ensure that secure ballot envelope identifiers provide a reliable, auditable mechanism to enforce Federal law without unduly burdening or infringing on the rights of eligible voters.”

Bar Codes to Thwart Mail-in Ballot Fraud

The order directs the U.S.P.S. to add bar codes on outer security envelopes (which would carry the mail-in ballot-envelope inside) to confirm that “only citizens receive and cast ballots, reducing the risk of fraud and protecting the integrity of Federal elections.”

Although many states have been adding bar codes to outer envelopes to help voters track their mail-in ballots, many have not. The EO adds a major directive to the U.S.P.S. to improve its reliability. Since the supposed temporary shift to mail-in balloting across states to accommodate the Covid pandemic, the postal service has struggled to meet its newfound role in the chain of custody of mail-in ballots.

In Virginia, for example, one in four mail-in ballots on average fails to be returned or returned on time.

Any groups, such as foreign nationals, even drug cartels notorious for ballot trafficking in states such as California, would have to contend with modernized ballot-tracking systems that can detect fake or counterfeit ballots being sent through the mail.

The EO also directs the Attorney General to ramp up investigations, and possible prosecutions of state and local officials, or any third parties, who issue federal ballots to individuals not eligible to vote in a federal election.

Cross-Checking Federal Citizenship Lists

In at least 19 states, anyone who interacts with the Department of Motor Vehicles is automatically enrolled to vote via the “Motor Voter” provisions in the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). It is established fact that millions of noncitizens are being swept into the voter rolls — even if they check “no” on the honor system currently in place for attesting citizenship and eligibility to register.

The latest EO is taking a unique approach to helping states identify and remove noncitizens by offering State Citizenship Lists that would be culled from federal citizenship and naturalization records, including Social Security Administration records and other federal databases. Updated lists would be transmitted to state election officials no fewer than 60 days before an election, or by request from state officials.

It also directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to create procedures for individuals to update and correct their voter information. State officials’ input, suggestions and modifications are welcome, too.

Cue the Outrage

Within minutes of the EO appearing on the White House website, uber-Democrat activist Marc Elias immediately claimed he would sue. Other groups are likely to follow after forum shopping for partisan judges.

Partisan District Court judges in Washington have issued injunctions on parts of President Trump’s prior Executive Order issued in March of 2025.

That EO directed federal agencies to help states identify and remove noncitizens from voter rolls to ensure only eligible citizens are registered to vote.

Election expert and leader of the Election Integrity Network Cleta Mitchell said at the time the EO was “carefully crafted to direct federal agencies to take steps aimed at enforcement of existing federal law, to help states implement those statutes – in keeping with the language of those laws.”

The Democratic National Committee, the League of Women Voters Education Fund, and the League of United Latin American Citizens filed suit against Executive Order 14248, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” Democrat AGs also piled on with litigation.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the D.C. District Court, notoriously hostile to the Trump administration, consolidated most of the litigation before she issued temporary pauses on parts of the order, such as preventing EAC commissioners from modifying the federal voter registration application form … to require documentary proof of United States citizenship.

A flurry of cross-motions and motions for summary judgement proceeded for close to a year, effectively slowing the White House’s efforts to shore up election security. However, appeals of Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s injunctions are about to move forward. [See LULAC v. Trump, No. 1:25-cv-946].

The latest EO arrives on the eve of the Supreme Court’s hearing on President Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order blocking automatic American citizenship to children born to foreign nationals in the U.S. illegally. The case is up on Wednesday, April 1.

At the White House today, President Trump said the Democrat left’s excuses about potential impact on citizens’ voting rights just don’t wash anymore. Preventing noncitizens from registering and voting, plus photo ID to cast a ballot enjoy wide support among all Americans. The SAVE America Act, still in the Senate, does that.

The current EO provides details to protect the voting rights of citizens who are eligible to vote, and directs the U.S.P.S. to do more to thwart mail-in ballot fraud, which ensures that citizens’ votes are not diluted.

(EPEC Team has documented thousands of noncitizens who leave a voting history, a Class 6 felony, before they self-declared themselves ineligible and were removed from the rolls.)

Partisans were issuing hyperbolic statements about voter suppression, and ignoring the very real issue of vote dilution from mail-in ballot fraud, and noncitizens automatically rolling onto voter rolls to create opportunities for fraud.

For now at the very least, a new EO on elections will ensure that voting integrity, voter-roll integrity, and thwarting ballot fraud, remain at the forefront of the national debate over restoring trust in election systems. See the current EO here. #

• The Senate Continues Debate on the SAVE America Act

• Update on VA Special Election Early Voting Turnout

SAVE Act Amendments, Debate Thru the Weekend

The Senate is staying in session through the weekend — with continued debate expected on the SAVE America Act on Saturday.

It’s a huge step forward for the bill, which would require photo ID to cast a ballot and proof of citizenship to register to vote; amendments this weekend are up for vote as well. Senate-watchers are keeping eyes peeled for signals on how negotiations are proceeding behind the scenes between amendment votes.

This weekend will help fill out more contours of whether a “talking filibuster” is possible as a path to passage.

Momentum on the bill is real, beyond grassroots groups who are keeping the issue front and center. Americans appear to be tuned in as well, given that wide majorities across the political spectrum support the Save Act itself.

That helps explain a growing swath of attacks and fear-mongering by left-wing progressive media. In today’s media analysis parlance, that means it is making serious headway since Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) kicked off debate of sorts this week. The Hill is tracking the legislative process:

The Senate is expected to vote Saturday on an amendment sponsored by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), a staunch Trump ally, to bar transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports.

Then the Senate will pivot to vote Sunday on a motion to advance the nomination of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) to serve as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which would set up a final confirmation vote for Mullin on Monday.

Then it’s back to debating the SAVE America Act, and keeping the bill on the floor.

“We’re winning,” said Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee after the first week of debate on the bill. “We’re not going to stop.”

Stay up to date on C-SPAN, or social media such as X, where more Republican senators are increasingly signaling their support for the measure among Republicans, Democrats and Independent voters. #

VA Special Election Early Voting Update

Two weeks into early voting for Virginia’s Special Election to decide whether to allow Assembly Democrats to draw extreme gerrymandered congressional maps [6-5 (D-R) to 10-1 (D-R) “temporarily” shows about 5% turnout so far.

The Breakdown so Far

Countable Ballots = 310,938

Of those countable ballots, about 214,479 have voted so far On Machine, with the balance of 96,450 voting By Mail.

—See Our Interactive Summary Data on Turnout by Locality Here.

• Track your locality, precinct, or city with Daily DAL summary data here.

• Track Ballot Status and Early Voting Tallies from the DAL here.

As one of the latest ads promoting a “no” vote on the maps says, this is no time to sit out an election. Find your polling place or check your registration here.

And get out to vote! #

Republished from Digital Poll Watchers blog:

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

Current analysis of the Comprehensive Absentee Application List (CAAL) from the Department of Elections shows at least 6,096 statewide records that are currently approved to receive absentee ballots, on a permanent basis, that do not have corresponding records existing in the Registered Voter List (RVL).

We are now in the early voting period for Virginia’s April 21, 2026 Special Election on redistricting. (We strongly urge you to vote, and to vote “NO” on the ballot question.)

Derivation, Methodology of Analysis

Prior to the start of early voting for the Special Election to amend Virginia’s constitution and allow redistricted congressional maps, EPEC Team purchased a fresh version of the Registered Voter List (“RVL”) and the Comprehensive Absentee Application List (“CAAL”) from the Department of Elections (“ELECT”). We also purchased the Voter History List (VHL) at the same time.

This gives us a full, temporally consistent, official dataset of all of these files direct from ELECT.

The CAAL encompasses the Permanent Absentee List (“PAL”) as well as those voters who have made non-recurring requests for absentee by-mail ballots. Upon examining the CAAL file, a couple of issues are easily observed.

First is that the CAAL, as we received it from ELECT, contains a number of duplicated records, with the only distinction being the APP_STATUS field.

Because there is no other distinguishing difference between rows that represent the same voter ID, it is impossible to know which row represents the current “status” of the voter ID being represented. There is no distinguishing transaction time stamp or other method to determine precedence of the records.

We don’t have any way of knowing which row entry came first; e.g., was John Q Public (in the table example below) first deemed to be “INCOMPLETE” then “DENIED,” and then John Q Public corrected his request and was “APPROVED”?

OR was he initially “APPROVED” by default, but then an issue was discovered by the General Registrar and he was deemed “INCOMPLETE,” with him finally getting “DENIED” because he didn’t correct the issue after a given time period?

There is no way to tell from the incomplete data provided by ELECT. (See example.)

So how do we make an inference as to whether a given voter with multiple conflicting records in the CAAL are “APPROVED” to receive mail in ballots or not?

Since we don’t know the temporal precedence, we could try and make a mathematical simplification / assumption that an APPROVED state can be cancelled out by any “non-approved” state; we then take the sum of any APPROVED state (with a value of +1) combined with any “non-approved” (with a value of -1) state for a given voter ID number that appears in the CAAL.

If the result is positive, we could consider the current state as being “approved.”

While that might be an appropriate way to interpret the data … a more conservative method is to only consider those records where there is no conflict in the APP_STATUS field.

For example: There is only a single row representing a given Voter ID number, and its status is “APPROVED.” This would assure us there is no confusion in the data (although it may be a significant under-count as to understanding the total numbers that are considered APPROVED by the state from the official record as provided).

If we take that second, more conservative, approach and then cross-correlate with the aforementioned RVL, which was purchased at the same time as the CAAL, we discover a second issue with the data from ELECT: 6,109 APPROVED records on the CAAL list of permanent absentee applications have no existing record in the RVL, the official list of voter registrations for the Commonwealth.

To be extra conservative in trying to interpret this data, if we further restrict this list to only those records that are “Permanent Absentee,” meaning they are signed up to automatically receive mail-in ballots every election in perpetuity, the number drops by 13 to 6,096.

That is … we see 6,096 statewide records (a very conservative estimate) that are currently approved to receive absentee ballots, on a permanent basis, that DO NOT HAVE CORRESPONDING RECORDS EXISTING in the Registered Voter List.

• This is based on official data from ELECT.

• All data was purchased at the same time from ELECT, so we have the most temporally consistent datasets possible to compare against.

• Our analysis was extremely conservative in our interpretation of the data from ELECT, ignoring entries that could not be clearly interpreted or rectified. #

  ---

EPEC Team is following this finding and will continue to update on this issue.

Jon Lareau volunteers as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for EPEC Team and is the Executive Director. You can follow his posts on X here.

• Track your locality, precinct, or city with Daily DAL summary data here.

• Track Ballot Status and Early Voting Tallies from the DAL here.

• More on Turnout and Estimates of Modeled Turnout in Our Next Report.

As one of the latest ads promoting a “no” vote on the maps says, this is no time to sit out an election. Find your polling place or check your registration here.

And get out to vote! #

If the first day of the special election is any indication, voters are engaged.

According to the Daily Absentee List (DAL) of early voting from the Department of Elections, more than 25,000 voted early on-machine Friday.

Registrars have issued (mailed out absentee ballots) to 394,121 voters so far.

Many localities were scrambling to get ballots out the door and testing on voting machines complete in time for the 45-day early voting period ahead of the Special Election on April 21.

Albemarle County showed more than 7,000 mail-in ballots still in “not issued” status as of Saturday, March 7. Richmond City showed zero data for On Machine, in-person voting.

Download EPEC’s Day One lookup sheet here to see how many mail-in ballots localities are issuing so far.

Here are the totals as of Friday, according to the Dept. of Elections:

Although the in-person (On Machine) number is 18% lower than in-person early voters (On-Machine) compared to the 2025 fall general election, it is still a strong start for a special election.

The redistricting issue has dominated Virginia’s politics for months amid legal challenges and an onslaught of advertising from Democrat-aligned groups claiming that gerrymandered maps are fair.

The ballot question itself conflates the word “fairness” with a plan to re-draw the current 6-5 (D-R) congressional map to a 10-1 (D-R) gerrymandered map ahead of the midterm elections.

“Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

If the vote passes, the new maps would give Democrats about 90% of representation in Congress and lock out a wide swath of Republican voters across the Commonwealth. A no vote would preserve the current maps for the midterms.

The Supreme Court of Virginia is still hearing appeals challenging how the constitutional amendment was construed (after majority-Democrats in the assembly voted in the midst of early voting in 2025 and claimed that counted as one of two intervening assembly votes). Even the wording of the ballot question itself is being appealed.

Similar to its January ruling to stay a Tazewell Circuit Court injunction that ruled the constitutional referendum was not legally construed, while agreeing to take up appeals, the SCV issued another stay of a recent second Tazewell Circuit Court injunction.

Same plan by the SCV: Go ahead and vote, and the justices will issue a ruling later on whether the whole thing was done constitutionally.

“It is the process, not the outcome, of this effort that we may ultimately have to address,” the SCV said in its March 4th ruling.

EPEC Data Analysis Updated for Early Voting

EPEC Team’s volunteer CTO, Jon Lareau, has updated summary data feeds of early voting to help the public track ballot statuses and turnout.

You can track the DAL summary data here.

For an explainer of each ballot status, see Lareau’s update here.

We are also updating our unique analysis of voting propensity and modeled turnout by party affiliation to estimate turnout.

Special Election Web Page

The Department of Elections has rolled out a web page explaining the constitutional amendment question on the ballot and proposed district maps that were approved by the General Assembly.

The new maps would only take effect if the ballot question is approved by voters.

A "yes" vote would allow the General Assembly to redraw Virginia's congressional districts, since other states have done so, in addition to giving effect to the proposed district map in time for the 2026 Congressional elections, and return the responsibility of drawing the congressional districts in 2031 to the Virginia Redistricting Commission.

A "no" vote would leave the authority to draw congressional districts with the Virginia Redistricting Commission once a decade and Virginia's current districts would remain in place.

See the overview web page here:

https://www.elections.virginia.gov/election-law/proposed-amendment-for-april-2026-special-election/

See the explainer here for the Proposed Constitutional Amendment.

Also noted: Key Deadlines Per ELECT:

• Register to Vote/Update Registration: 4/14/2026

• Early in-person voting: 3/6/2026 through 4/18/2026

• Apply for ballot to be mailed to you: through 4/10/2026

EPEC Team will increase its publishing schedule as early voting unfolds, and provide more details on the modeling of turnout throughout the 45-day early voting stretch.

Current Congressional Districts:

Proposed Maps:

As one of the latest ads promoting a “no” vote on the maps says, this is no time to sit out an election.

Find your polling place or check your registration here. And get out to vote! #

Despite a recent ruling issued by Tazewell Judge Jack Hurley* a week ago ordering preparations to halt on the special election, ELECT sent out an advisory on the same day as the ruling with key dates and schedules.

See the advisory about the April 21 election here:

https://epec.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Redacted_-VA-Department-of-Elections-Advisory-on-April-21-Preparations_Part-1.pdf

Timing of the Advisory

The advisories from ELECT are dated Feb. 19, 2026 — the same day a Tazewell District Court issued a second ruling enjoining the Dept. of Elections from preparing for the election, and a day before the Elections Commissioner appealed to the Supreme Court of Virginia.

See the latest Tazewell District Court Ruling here:

https://epec.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Judge-Order-Tazewell-County-Feb-18-Enjoining-Referendum-on-Redistricting.pdf

See the Commissioner of Elections’ appeal (Koski v. RNC) here:

https://epec.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/VA-Democrat-Administration-Files-Appeal-of-Latest-Tazewell-in-Koski-vs.-RNC.pdf

More Judicial Hearings to Clarify

In yet another related development, former House of Delegates member and attorney Tim Anderson was in Lynchburg County Circuit Court today for a hearing asking a judge to clarify the recent Tazewell ruling.

Does the Feb. 19 Tazewell ruling apply to localities as well? Other localities are said to be asking similar questions.

Judge F. Patrick Yeatts apparently took the case under advisement, saying he would rule by Monday on whether to issue a new injunction if the Supreme Court of Virginia doesn’t act by Monday [on the latest appeals]. Pleadings are here: https://lynchburg.win

Anderson posted an update on his X account today:

In the meantime, EPEC Team is publishing the special advisory details it received via FOIA requests, and an advisory on the change to the June 16 primary to Aug. 4.

They include a schedule for Logic & Accuracy testing, ballot prep, and deadlines for coordinating absentee by-mail ballots with the third-party ballot-tracking outfit “Ballot Scout.” See the April 21 advisory here:

https://epec.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Redacted_-VA-Department-of-Elections-Advisory-on-April-21-Preparations_Part-1.pdf

Localities, including Fairfax County, are sending out email notices of the April 21, 2026 election on a proposed Virginia constitutional amendment.

The notices are collecting availability from active election officers. (And adding officers back to notification lists, as of Friday.)**

Advisories on the primary elections date change from June 16th to August 4th can be viewed here. (We redacted email and phone information on the advisories.)

https://epec.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/VA-Department-of-Elections-Advisory-on-April-21-Preparations_Part-2.pdf

EPEC Team mapped out how each of the localities voted in the governor race in 2025 using official Dept. of Elections data to depict the voting preferences of Virginia’s population.

We then added another layer on the map showing the outline of the latest proposed new maps released by the Virginia assembly as of Feb. 17. The dual-map view shows the Republican-voting districts and the Democrat-voting districts that are being re-drawn to achieve a 10-1 (D-R) congressional map ahead of the midterm elections.

More maps in our next report.

For more information about upcoming elections, see the Dept. of Elections’ website here: https://www.elections.virginia.gov/casting-a-ballot/upcoming-elections.html. #

* Corrects prior version’s auto-correct spelling of Judge Hurley’s name.

** Updates status of election officers being notified of upcoming elections.

Full stop on the special election statewide (including early voting), according to the Feb. 19 temporary restraining order from Tazewell County Judge Jack Henry, who wrote: (emphasis ours):

“The court finds that Plaintiffs have an extraordinarily high likelihood of success on the Merits. Moreover, the Court finds that Plaintiffs are also likely to succeed on the merit of their claim that the referendum on the proposed amendment violates the timing requirement of Article XII, Section 1 because early voting is set for “sooner than 90 days after’ the January passage of House Joint Resolution 4.”

The plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit against Virginia Democrats are the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, Rep. Ben Cline (R-6), and Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-9).

See the latest Tazewell order here:

https://epec.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Judge-Order-Tazewell-County-Feb-18-Enjoining-Referendum-on-Redistricting.pdf

See the appeal of the order (Koski v. RNC) here:

https://epec.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/VA-Democrat-Administration-Files-Appeal-of-Latest-Tazewell-in-Koski-vs.-RNC.pdf

The betting among pundits is that Virginia’s Supreme Court will punt again, and issue another ruling that takes up an appeal of whether the vote itself was illegally constituted — only after the electorate votes.

The latest ruling from Tazewell County takes aim at that argument as well.

To allow the vote before the Constitutional questions and legal issues of how the vote to amend the Constitution were constructed “threatens to cause an irreparable injury,” the judge wrote in the Feb. 19 ruling.

The arguments are also different in this lawsuit than the previous action that Virginia lawmakers brought.

It’s a fast-moving case, so we’ll keep this update brief

The case also brought the wording of the referendum question to the fore. The special election (now halted) would ask the voters:

“Question: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

Judge Henry noted that the plaintiffs would likely succeed on their claim that the ballot language itself is misleading, “in particular the ‘restore fairness’ language because it would lead a voter to believe he or she were doing something unfair by voting against the proposed amendment.”

Steven Koski, the recently appointed Commissioner of Elections in the Spanberger administration, leads off the appeal with three big arguments. It says the court erred on the likelihood of succeeding on the merits; the circuit court is wrong about the “irreparable harm” argument; and the court did not balance out the public interest.

Meanwhile, Back in the Assembly:

The Democrat-majority assembly released new maps of the gerrymandered districts on Feb. 17 as part of its budget bill. This one is an update from the Feb. 4th maps it released. The new maps can be downloaded here:

https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB29 ("supporting documents").

EPEC Team worked up a version of the latest map boundaries, and zoomed in on where the latest maps remove voters from District 2, currently held by Republican Jen Kiggans, and moves them into District 3, currently held by Democrat Bobby Scott.

More in our next report about the legal fights over the maps. #

The high court denied a motion by Democrats in the assembly to stay a Tazewell County district court ruling from Jan. 27. That ruling found Virginia’s majority-Democrat assembly violated the law and constitution in rushing out a special election on new maps.

But it also ruled the special April 21 election would go forward while it hears arguments on whether the special election is illegal; arguments are set for April 23rd.

The effort is part of a redistricting race with Republicans ahead of the midterms.

If voters approve the measure in the special election, historically low-turnout contests, the current 6-5(D-R) congressional maps would be re-drawn to 10-1 (D-R) map, effectively wiping out four Republican-filled seats in the U.S. House.

Although Democrats were cheering the ruling, the “court’s schedule raises the possibility that it could all be for naught,” as the AP noted in its report.

That’s because the Supreme Court may “ultimately uphold a lower court ruling that the mid-decade redistricting amendment is invalid.”

Which left observers calling the ruling nothing short of a punt by the Supreme Court of Virginia. The high court’s ruling itself may end up being appealed.

But for now, Virginia is expected to vote in a special Election on April 21 to decide whether to amend the Constitution “temporarily” and allow the majority Democrats to gerrymander congressional maps before the midterms. All while the high court reviews the Tazewell ruling that enjoined the special election.

Reaction

Liberal journalist Graham Moomaw of the Richmonder summarized some of the head-shaking reaction to the SCV’s ruling in a series of posts on X:

Former Attorney General Jason Miyares, co-chair of a political action group fighting the gerrymandered maps, hinted at a possible appeal, noting: “There will be further legal action on this matter.”

For his part, Republican assembly member Sen. Ryan McDougle, one of the litigants in the case, said “rule of law will prevail.”

Early voting starts on March 6th and concludes on April 18th before Special Election Day April 21.

Voting in Old Districts, About Vague New Voting Districts

As the relevant assembly budget bill spells out, the question voters will decide is this:

“Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

The documentation for the proposed maps, including Shapefiles and a list of “block IDs” can be downloaded here:

https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB29

The updated budget this week is now listing a text file of which localities and voting districts are fully and partially listed in proposed new districts.

https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/amendment/2026/1/SB29/Introduced/CA/4-14/1s/

EPEC Team has been plotting the “block IDs” that the assembly Democrats released in the maps; we have found a few gaps in the maps.

We pulled up 2020 shapefiles from the U.S. Census Bureau to map out population tracts, voting districts, and localities, which the assembly is citing as sources for its proposed new congressional districts.

Areas with shifting voting groups are centered on population areas. At this view, they turn into blobs of voting districts. But they are instructive of which Democrat-leaning districts are being parceled out, and which Republican-leaning voting districts are being cracked to create the Democrat-friendly voting districts.

• Major shifts in the proposed new maps:

  • Northern Virginia suburbs (Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun) get heavily re-split to favor Democrats.

  • District 1 shrinks dramatically (currently very large; proposed version keeps only ~7 localities).

  • District 9 (Southwest) expands significantly, absorbing much of the current District 6.

  • District 11 (Northern Virginia) grows outward into Prince William, Fauquier, and Rockingham counties.

  • Districts 2 & 3 (Hampton Roads) stay almost identical.

  • Rural/central areas see big consolidations.

    The heavy splits take place in the regions circled below:

Here’s a handy chart courtesy of an AI assistant:

The balloting will be conducted in Virginia’s current voting districts.

More in our next report. To find out about balloting deadlines for the Special Election, see the Department of Elections here. #

Other Big Developments This Week:

SAVE Act Passes House to Require Proof of Citizenship to Register

The House of Representatives passed an updated SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) Act which requires proof of U.S. Citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to cast a ballot. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) reported he was up to 50 senators, including Democrat John Fetterman, who were supporting the bill.

The question is whether Majority Leader John Thune will allow a “talking” filabuster, which would give the bill a chance to pass without 60 votes. For now, it’s in the Senate’s hands.

DOJ to Receive Nevada’s Voter Rolls

Nebraska’s Republican secretary of state will turn over voter lists requested by the head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, Harmeet Dhillon, who is suing 22 states, including Virginia for voter rolls to ensure they are lawful.

The AP reported that the Nebraska Supreme Court denied a request for an injunction to block the DOJ’s request. This will contribute to other cases around the nation that are currently being litigated, or appealed. #

On the crime issue alone, the New York Post reported:

“House Bill 863 would reduce minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter and child pornography.”

The sentiment across news media and social media networks: demonstrably negative.

Bills that would strip American citizens of Second Amendment rights have attracted comment by the Dept. of Justice.

Here’s libertarian publication Reason, which noted just this week: “the Senate Courts of Justice Committee advanced seven bills that shall infringe on one of Americans' most sacred and important rights.”

Fewer Voices Discussing Election Bills

We have not seen much discussion in the media (beyond accounts on X such as NoVa Campaigns) about the impact on election transparency that some 111 election bills before the majority Democrat assembly represent.

Taken together, they would wrench public oversight of election transparency from citizens — even strip Electoral Boards of their authority, and make voter-roll maintenance cross-checks nearly impossible.

Here are a few:

—One bill would enable pre-9/11 loopholes for “driver privilege cards” with potential for exploitation by foreign nationals in the country illegally.

The bill’s convoluted language has raised concerns that its intent is to further weaken federal immigration laws. It would allow foreign nationals who cannot show legal presence in the U.S. to receive a state-issued driver ID card for eight years. The current duration is two years.

The bill’s backers claim it has just enough language to protect Americans from the kind of fraudulent exploitation that enabled seven of the nine 9/11 hijackers to receive “driver privilege” cards in Virginia in 2001 before they crashed planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

It is hard to see how a time-extension of state-issued cards, including commercial driver’s licenses for noncitizens, is considered safe merely because it operates outside of the national “REAL ID” system of checking legal presence in the U.S.

As the FBI said in 2001, “unscrupulous lawyers and notaries established a thriving illicit market for processing undocumented aliens for hefty fees” that allowed seven of the 9/11 terrorists to obtain “driver privilege” cards in Virginia.

Somehow, Virginia’s legislative tracking system randomly assigned the bill’s number as HB 911. #

—The Return of ERIC

SB 57 is the Senate version of majority Democrats’ zeal to return Virginia to the controversial private voter-roll organization known as ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center), whose partisanship and sloppy record-keeping led Virginia to exit in 2023.

See the letter from the Dept. of Elections explaining why Virginia left ERIC. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23810805-file_0097-2/

Senate bill 57 sailed through the Democrat majority assembly this past week, and passed on the floor along partisan lines: 21-Y, 17-N.

A companion bill in the House of Delegates, HB 215, aims to untangle Virginia from years of partnerships it built out with some 11 states (memorandum of understanding) on voter-roll maintenance after leaving ERIC.

Election security groups have documented ERIC’s history of duplicating voter-roll maintenance work with the so-called “Eligible but Unregistered” lists it generates, which can create confusion and error.

For example, the Commonwealth of Virginia found “168,000 potential registrants in ERIC’s data who were ineligible to vote because they were deceased or had moved away,” according to election law firm Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).

PILF has been litigating over ERIC’s methods for years. It recently won a federal court ruling in Arizona forcing ERIC to show its work on voters it claimed were deceased. Turns out they weren’t really dead.

“Unfortunately ERIC makes mistakes,” said PILF’s founder J. Christian Adams in a statement, “which is why only half the states continue to use its services.”

Perhaps most concerning to Virginians and transparency is ERIC’s membership agreement, which would put member states in violation of federal election statutes.

To wit:

As part of ERIC’s membership agreement, states are not allowed to share certain ERIC data reports with the public. This secrecy violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which gives the public a right to inspect voter rolls and voter list maintenance documents. PILF won access to these ERIC reports in Alaska and the District of Columbia.

HB 215 was still listed in committee as of January 30th. #

— Electoral Boards as Merely Ministerial

The language in HB 78 is an extension of progressive-left groups’ media crusade to nullify electoral boards around the country by claiming their votes to certify elections are merely ministerial. The bill would reduce boards to rubber stamps on election certification procedures. It could be an invitation to bad behavior in elections.

HB 78 says (emphasis mine):

The certification of the results of an election is a clear ministerial duty of the local electoral boards and that a member of the local electoral board who neglects or refuses to perform such duty in accordance with law shall be subject to removal proceedings by the State Board of Elections and assessed a civil penalty not exceeding $1,000.

The bill also authorizes the State Board of Elections to intervene and carry out the duties related to election certification in the event a local electoral board fails or refuses to do so.

Republican assembly members on the Privileges & Elections sub-committee also voted to advance this bill.

Few, if any, assembly members on both sides of the aisle have spoken out, in committee or elsewhere, about these bills with any authority. During committee hearings this week, some assembly members did not appear to understand the full language in the bills they were sponsoring.

It raises more concerns among observers that lobbyists, activists and entities outside of the assembly — even outside of Virginia — are writing most if not all of the 100-plus election bills, with little input from the public.

These are just some summaries of bills that moved through committee this week. EPEC Team will keep tracking their impact on election systems transparency. #

ICYMI: Court Updates

—Update on Tazewell County Ruling on VA Redistricting

Assembly Democrats have rushed out an appeal of a Tazewell County judge’s ruling last week that found the VA assembly flouted the Constitution, Virginia Statute and its own rules in rushing a referendum vote for redistricting to a special election.

Per the Washington Post:

Lawyers for Virginia House Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) have filed an emergency motion asking the state Court of Appeals [in Richmond] to prevent a judge from blocking the legislature’s redistricting effort, saying a ruling earlier this week against the proposed amendment to the state constitution amounted to unprecedented interference in the democratic process.

The judge’s action “directly interferes with the ongoing process of amending the Constitution of Virginia. Binding precedent of the Supreme Court of Virginia forbids this,” lawyer Aria C. Branch of the Elias Law Group wrote in the 35-page motion. “A stay is urgently needed to restore the constitutional separation of powers and ensure that the process of amending the Constitution proceeds unimpeded by improper interference.” #

—D.C. Judge Strikes Again Against Executive Order on Elections

On the eve of more expected appeals by the Department of Justice of a ruling to block parts of President Trump’s Executive Order on Elections, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued a third ruling Friday.

This time she appears to be leaning in on the use of adverb to address the executive branch’s oversight of federal election statutes.

She writes: The Court shall also DECLARE that, in the course of implementing Section 2(b) and 3(a) of the Executive Order, which relate to the sharing of data by federal agencies, the Federal Defendants must strictly comply with the mandates of the Privacy Act, including its requirement that agencies provide at least 30 days’ notice and opportunity for comment for any new or intended “routine use” of information stored in an agency’s system of records.”

The ruling appears to insert a view of the law regarding the Attorney General’s broad authority to review voter records. It also wades into “privacy” arguments blue states are using to defy the AG’s authority under the Civil Rights Act to review voter rolls.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly is widely viewed by conservative groups as a notoriously partisan anti-Trump judge. Her third ruling in the case takes aim at the section of the EO that discusses “Enforcing the Citizenship Requirement for Federal Elections.”

Section 2 B of the EO discusses “the type of document that the [registration] applicant presented as documentary proof of United States citizenship, including the date of the document’s issuance, the date of the document’s expiration (if any), the office that issued the document, and any unique identification number associated with the document as required by the criteria in 52 U.S.C. 21083(a)(5)(A), while taking appropriate measures to ensure information security.”

The judge’s ruling also appears to slow down states’ routine use of the “Social Security Number Verification Service, the Death Master File, and any other Federal databases” for ensuring accurate voter rolls.

See the ruling here. #

—HB 966 Says No Bulk Uploads to Cross-Check Voter Lists

Coincidentally, the VA Assembly has also introduced a bill that would slow down list maintenance in the Commonwealth. HB 966 would only allow the Dept. of Elections to search one record at a time using the recently updated SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) naturalization database.

Make of that what you will. More on the impact of these bills in our next report. #

Judge Jack Hurley Jr. of Tazewell County Circuit Court’s ruling enjoins the Special Election slated for April 21.

The ruling said Democrats flouted the rules, statutes, and the Constitution.

For example, the judge took issue with the so-called “intervening vote” requirement for redistricting, which the Democrat majority held in the assembly during October — in the middle of early voting.

“For this Court to find that the election was only on November 4, 2025, those one million Virginia voters would be completely disenfranchised,” he wrote.

VA Assembly Democrats had also apparently tried to change a 1971-era, 90-day notification statute to claim, ex post facto, that they have authority now.

The judge wasn’t buying it, saying they “woefully argued the posting could occur three (3) months prior to the 2027 election and still comply with the statute even if the proposed Constitutional Amendment was voted on in the Spring of 2026.”

The wording of the notification statute and requirements for public notice of amendments to the Constitution may be the most difficult for Democrats to overcome on appeal:

In a defiant statement by House Speaker Don Scott, Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke, House Democratic Caucus Chair Kathy Tran, they vowed to press on:

“Nothing that happened today will dissuade us from continuing to move forward and put this matter directly to the voters. Republicans who can’t win at the ballot box are abusing the legal process in an attempt to sow confusion and block Virginians from voting. We will be appealing this ruling immediately and we expect to prevail. This was court-shopping, plain and simple. We’re prepared for the next step, and voters – not politicians – will have the final say.”

Republican state Sen. Ryan McDougle, a plaintiff in the case, House Del. Terry Kilgore, and former U.S. House member Eric Cantor, who co-chairs the group Virginians for Fair Maps, were exultant.

The ruling is “a decisive victory for the rule of law and Virginia voters,” they said.

Former Del. Tim Anderson noted the ruling only applies to the locality, but lays out a legal principle the Democrats will have to overcome on appeal.

National Redistricting Updates

The AP tallied up the redistricting battles in other states at the national level ahead of the midterm elections. The math so far: Republicans are ahead by nine potential extra seats “they believe they can win in Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio.”

Democrats see six more seats they think they can re-map across California and Utah, where a judge struck down Republicans’ congressional map that gives them one more seat (that one is under appeal). Plus, “Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis plans to call a special session on redistricting in April.”

Virginia was seen as the place to make up Democrats’ three-seat margin in the redistricting math so far. Now, a judge has issued a permanent injunction that sets the stage for litigation that could drag on for months, beyond the midterms. #

Reprinted from DigitalPollWatchers.org

We have updated our previous analysis with the latest information from Virginia’s Department of Elections data.

(See prior reports from March 2024, July 2024, Sept 2024, Oct 2024, Nov 2024, Dec 2024, March 2025 and August 2025.)

Abstract:

Using the data provided by the VA Department of Elections (ELECT), we have identified at least 7,343 unique registrations that were self-identified as “Declared Non-Citizen” and removed by ELECT from the voter rolls since May of 2023. Of those 7,343 removals there were 1,225 that also had corresponding records of recent ballots cast at some point in the official Voter History record that we could observe. There were 3,515 associated ballots cast identified since Feb of 2019. There were an additional 10 non-citizen registrations and ballots as per the Daily Absentee List (DAL) data, that were not contained in the Voter History data. The total number of identified non-citizen ballots cast is therefore 3,525 by 1,235 registrants when combining unique VHL and DAL identifications.

After our initial March 2024 post on this topic, we submitted all of the relevant information that we had at the time to the VA AG’s office. We have not heard any response or update on the matter since that time, besides this being considered an active investigation. We subsequently sent our July results as well to the same contact at the AG’s office, but have had no response. The outgoing VA AG declined to take any action on these cases that we are aware of.

The Arlington County VA Electoral Board undertook their own investigation into this matter after our previous results were posted, and they (as of Sept 10 2024) voted 3-0 to send the information to the AG’s office as well. The Arlington County Commonwealths Attorney was reported to have an ongoing investigation into the matter. Similar efforts were underway in multiple other counties, including Loudoun and Fairfax counties, to name a few.

See our coverage here and here.

In October 2024 the League of Women Voters along with the US DOJ sued VA over this issue and attempted to get an injunction to place ~1,600 of these removed registrations back on the Voter roll. After two lower courts granted the injunction, it was stayed by the US Supreme Court. It is EPEC’s opinion that the State of VA is correctly applying the law in this matter, as I detailed in a X.com post on Oct 12.

Background:

The VA Department of Elections continuously tries to identify and remove invalid or out of date registration records from the voter rolls. One category used for removal is if a registrant has been determined to be a non-citizen. It is required by the VA Constitution that only citizens are allowed to vote in VA elections.

In elections by the people, the qualifications of voters shall be as follows: Each voter shall be a citizen of the United States, shall be eighteen years of age, shall fulfill the residence requirements set forth in this section, and shall be registered to vote pursuant to this article. …VA Constitution, Article II, Section 1. https://law.lis.virginia.gov/constitution/article2/section1/

Additionally, according to VA Code Section 24.2-1004, the act of knowingly casting a ballot by someone who is not eligible to vote is a Class 6 felony.

A. Any person who wrongfully deposits a ballot in the ballot container or casts a vote on any voting equipment, is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

B. Any person who intentionally (i) votes more than once in the same election, whether those votes are cast in Virginia or in Virginia and any other state or territory of the United States, (ii) procures, assists, or induces another to vote more than once in the same election, whether those votes are cast in Virginia or in Virginia and any other state or territory of the United States, (iii) votes knowing that he is not qualified to vote where and when the vote is to be given, or (iv) procures, assists, or induces another to vote knowing that such person is not qualified to vote where and when the vote is to be given is guilty of a Class 6 felony.https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title24.2/chapter10/section24.2-1004/

ELECT makes available for purchase by qualifying parties various different data sets, including the registered voter list (RVL) and the voter history list information file (VHL). Additionally, ELECT makes available a Monthly Update Service (MUS) subscription that is published at the beginning of each month and contains (almost) all of the Voter List changes and transactions for the previous period.

In the MUS data there is a “NVRAReasonCode” field that is associated with each transaction that gives the reason for the update or change in the voter record. This is in accordance with the disclosure and transparency requirements in the NVRA. One of the possible reason codes given for records that are removed is “Declared Non-Citizen.”

EPEC has been consistently purchasing and archiving all of these official records as part of our ongoing work to document and educate the public as to the ongoing operations of our elections. (If you’re interested in supporting this work, please head on over to our donation page, or to our give-send-go campaign to make a tax-deductible donation, as these data purchases are not cheap!)

EPEC looked at the number of records associated with unique voter identification numbers that had been identified for removal from the voter record due to non-citizenship status, per the entries in the MUS, and correlated those results with our accumulated voter history list information in order to determine how many non-citizen registrations had corresponding records of ballots cast in previous elections. We only considered those records that are currently in a non-active state as of the latest MUS transaction log, as some determinations of non-citizenship status in the historical MUS transaction log might have been due to error and subsequently corrected and reinstated to active status. That is, and we emphasize here that we are not considering those records that had a “Declared Non-Citizen” disqualification, but were then subsequently reinstated and reactivated by ELECT.

Note that while EPEC has periodically purchased full copies of the Voter History List for our archive, there is a known issue with the way ELECT handles removals from the voter record that can cause sampling issues depending on the time the VHL file is purchased, and records of legitimately cast ballots to not be present in the VHL: Namely, when ELECT removes a voter from the voter list, they also remove all instances of that voter ID from voter history information and other data files provided to qualified organizations. (IMO … thats a terrible way to manage the data, but that is the way it is done.) In light of that, EPEC also used its archived versions of the Daily Absentee List (DAL) for recent elections in order to attempt to find records of votes cast that might otherwise be missing from the VHL.

Results:

There were 7,343 unique voter records marked for removal with the reason of “Declared Non-Citizen” and not subsequently reinstated in the accumulated MUS record that EPEC began collecting in mid-2023. Of those 7,343 there were 1,225 that also had corresponding records of recent ballots cast at some point in the official Voter History record that we could observe. There were 3,515 associated ballots cast identified since Feb of 2019. Figure 1 below shows the distribution of non-citizen voters in the cumulative MUS file history. The blue trace represent the total identified and CANCELED non-citizen registrations, and the yellow trace represents the number of those records that also had corresponding records (at least 1) in the accumulated voter history data.

Note that the data contained in the MUS updates often covers more than a single month period. In other words, the individual MUS files are oversampled. Subsequent MUS files can therefore also have repeated entries from previous versions, as their data may overlap. Our analysis used the first unique entry for a given voter ID marked as “Declared Non-Citizen” in the cumulative MUS record, that had not been subsequently reinstated, in order to build Figure 1. This data oversampling in the MUS may help explain the relative spike in the first (May 2023) bin compared to subsequent months.

As VHL information can be incomplete depending on the time the VHL data was purchased in relation to the time that registrants were removed from voter records, EPEC also checked these non-citizen removals against the archived history of Daily Absentee List (DAL) files that EPEC has accumulated. There were an additional 10 non-citizen registrations and ballots as per the Daily Absentee List (DAL) data that were not contained in the Voter History data. The total number of identified non-citizen ballots cast is therefore 3,525 by 1,235 registrants when combining unique VHL and DAL identifications.

These identifications represent only the individuals who declared themselves as non-citizen status through official interactions with ELECT, DMV, or other agencies. Each removed registrant was then contacted by the registrar to confirm their non-citizen status prior to removal, as is the current policy. (Again … we are only considering those records that we’re flagged as “Declared Non-Citizen”, removed and never reinstated.)

The distribution of identified unique voter ID’s for the 1,225 identified non-citizen voters per VA locality is given below in Table 1. It should be noted that each ballot record has a specific locality associated with where the ballot was cast, whereas unique individuals might move between localities over time. The assignment of unique identified individuals to each locality in table 1 is therefore based on the locality listed in the specific MUS “Declared Non-Citizen” record for that individual, while the assignment of ballot cast to Localities is based on the individual VHL/DAL records. A person could have lived and voted multiple times in one county, then moved to another county and voted again before finally being determined as a non-citizen. The same person would have generated multiple VHL/DAL records for each ballot cast, and associated with potentially different localities. This should be kept in mind when attempting to interpret Table 1.

(See partial list sorted from highest to lowest numbers).

The distribution of the 3,515 ballots that were identified as being cast by non-citizen voters (the yellow trace in Figure 1) in previous elections is shown in Figure 2. The most significant spikes are in the 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 November General elections, as well as the 2020 March Democratic presidential primary. Figure 3, which shows this distribution as a percentage of votes cast. Please note the scale of the Y-axis on the percent plot in Figure 3 is in percent of total ballots cast in each election. These graphs were only produced for the VHL data, and do not include the DAL identified records.

Figures 4 and 5 show the distribution of the registration dates of the identified non-citizen records. The same data is plotted in figure 4 and 5, with the only difference being the scale of the Y-axis in order to better observe the dynamic range of the values. When we look at the registration date of these identified records, we see that there is a distinct relative increase starting around 1996, and then again around 2012.

EPEC made a FOIA request to the VA Attorney General’s office on March 11, 2024 inquiring for any records regarding how many prosecutions for non-citizen voting had occurred since June of 2023. We received a response that the AG had no such relevant records.

EPEC subsequently submitted our March analysis dataset to the VA AG’s office upon their request. We have heard no updates or status as to any action taken by the AG’s office since that time, except that it is being considered an ongoing investigation.

Discussion

It appears from the MUS data, that the VA Department of Elections (ELECT) is doing routine identification, cleanup and removal of non-citizen registrations, which is a good thing and we commend them for their continued efforts to maintain clean voter registration lists.

Given the current court cases filed by LWV and DOJ against the state of VA on the matter, it is important to note that the records identified in the MUS are only those resulting from individuals self-identifying as a non-citizen via interactions with DMV, ELECT, or other official avenues, and that the data presented here specifically excludes those individuals that were subsequently reinstated onto the voter rolls.

The fact that a small number of these identified non-citizen registrations are also associated with (presumably … if the data from ELECT is accurate) illegally cast ballots in previous elections does raise a number of questions that citizens should be (politely) asking and discussing with their legislators, elected and appointed government officials. Each act of non-citizen voting is a de-facto disenfranchisement of legal voters rights, and is a punishable offense under VA law.

Q: How did these registrants get placed onto the voter rolls in the first place?

Q: What method and/or data sources are used by the state to identify non-citizen registrations for removal? If that process is exhaustive, and covers all registrations, then these numbers might be considered to represent a statistical complete picture of the problem. If that process is not exhaustive, in that it only uses serendipitous corroborating data sources, then these results likely under-represent the scale of the issues.

As noted above, we are only considering here those individuals who have not had their records re-instated or reactivated after a determination of non-citizen status.

We do not have enough information to determine how or why some records were first determined to be non-citizen, canceled and then subsequently re-instated.

One potential area of concern is determining whether or not registrants might be falsely or errantly claiming to not be a citizen on official documents in order to be excused from jury duty, for example, and then work to re-instate their voting status once those documents percolate through the system to ELECT and are flagged for removal. This is a wholly separate but serious issue, as making false claims on official documents is itself a punishable offense.

Q: What procedures, processes and technical solutions are in place to prevent current or future registration and casting of ballots by non-citizens? This is especially pertinent given the recent state of the flow of illegal immigrants crossing our national borders.

According to a recent report by Yahoo Finance, VA is one of the top 30 destinations for illegal migrants, with both Loudoun County and Fairfax making the list.

Q: Why have none of the identified non-citizens who also cast ballots been investigated or prosecuted under VA Code 24.2-1004? As the identification of these ballots comes directly from looking at the official records produced by ELECT, it seems prudent for these to be forwarded by ELECT to the AG’s office with a recommendation to investigate and prosecute. Yet our FOIA request to the VA AG’s office inquiring as to any records associated with these types of investigations or prosecutions produced a “no relevant records exist” response. And since we submitted this information to the AG’s office, there has been no follow up.

Additionally, this evidence which is derived from only official state records, directly contradicts multiple news media reports and attestations that non-citizen voting is a “Myth”, and that non-citizen voting happens “almost never”. If the data from ELECT is accurate, then there are at least 3,515 ballots that have been cast by non-citizen voters just since 2019. Now, that is still very infrequent, but it is not “almost never.” It is a legitimate concern … and these discoveries are only the registrations that have been found and removed from the voter roles by ELECT and that we can observe in the data. We do not know how many exist that we do not know about.

It should be reiterated that these are only the records that we can observe given our data repository, and how often we can realistically purchase and acquire voter history and voter registration information. It is therefore likely that this represents a significant undercount of the occurrences of non-citizen voters and non-citizen voting.

Due to the infrequent nature of these data purchases, it is very likely that some individuals have had their voter history or voter registration information completely removed from the record in between our purchases. Additionally, we know that the MUS data does not entirely encompass all transactions performed on the RVL by the department of elections, so there may be yet other unknown transactions that we are missing.

For information that is supposed to be publicly available (according to federal NVRA laws), the state has put up significant hurdles in order for citizens and organizations to acquire it for use it for ensuring transparency and integrity of our electoral process. If we are to have elections that are transparent and accountable to the public, then we must insist that the data be made available and accessible. #

John Lareau volunteers as Executive Director and Chief Technology Officer of EPEC.

Video of the analysis is on his X account here. Follow his account here.

The vaguely worded constitutional amendment referendum, HB 1384, asks Commonwealth citizens if they would “temporarily” allow a redistricting that would wipe out Republican-leaning congressional seats to “restore fairness” in the November midterm election.

The bill calls for a special election on April 21 that says:

“Question: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?”

Republicans have already said they will continue to challenge whether the Democrats provided proper legal notice of the referendum, as required under statute.

Now the “fairness” language in HB 1384, asking for a “temporary” gerrymander authority to redistrict the current 5-6 (R-D) congressional maps to wipe out some four or five Republican-leaning congressional districts, has raised new talk of legal fights.

Former House of Delegates member Tim Anderson, in a video comment posted on his X platform account, said when Democrats say “restore fairness” in the bill, they are alleging that the current re-redistricting commission (approved by over 65% of the electorate in 2020) is suddenly unfair.

“No court has found that,” he said. “Nobody’s even alleged our current lines are unfair.” And so, to use the word fairness in the referendum “is fatal, subject to challenge,” he continued. “Let’s see who is going to step up [and sue]. If somebody doesn’t, I will.”

“We have a law on the books that says the maps can’t be rigged for one party,” noted reporter Graham Moomaw of the Richmonder in a social media post.

“The General Assembly approved that as a general rule that applies regardless of who’s drawing the maps.

VA statute 24.2-304.04 also says congressional districts shall be composed of “compact territory and shall be drawn employing one or more standard numerical measures of individual and average district compactness, both statewide and district by district.”

The Democrat majority assembly may also be in a hurry to act before the Supreme Court issues its ruling in Louisiana v Calais*, which may either narrow or do away with racially-drawn districts as unconstitutional violations of the 14^th Amendment.

The other three Constitutional amendment bills in the assembly (allowing abortions in the third trimester, codifying gay marriage, and restoring some felons’ voting rights) will instead be put forward on the November midterm ballot.

The Republican party of Virginia (RPV) has not decided on a new chairman to replace Sen. Mark Peake (R-Lynchburg) who resigned after the 2025 election results; official actions and reactions are unclear at this point.

Anderson was among many legislators (former and current) challenging the wording of HB 1384 today, if not providing droll commentary about the language in the bill.

Fundamentally, he added, you can’t say in a Constitutional amendment question that the current congressional map configuration is “unfair when it’s clearly not.”

* Updates prior post to correct that the Supreme Court case is Louisiana v Calais, not Calais v. Louisiana and cite the most recent publication for Moomaw.

That’s one of the big takeaways from the 7-2 ruling yesterday.

It hearkens to the 2020 election when more than 60 election-law challenges never got a hearing because they were dismissed for “lack of standing.”

As the ruling explains, Illinois congressional candidate Michael Bost and two other political candidates filed a lawsuit claiming that Illinois law allowing mail-in ballots for 14 days after they are postmarked on election day conflicts with federal statute.

They principally contended that doing so conflicts with 2 U. S. C. §7 and 3 U. S. C. §1, which set election day as the Tuesday following the first Monday in November. The district court dismissed the case, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed on the ground that petitioners lacked standing.

The Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit decision and now the issue about accepting ballots after election day moves onward in lower courts.

Election-security groups are cheering, with good reason.

Tom Fitton, founder of election integrity organization Judicial Watch, which brought the first lawsuit in the case in 2022, called the ruling “the most important Supreme Court election law ruling in a generation.”

“Too many courts have denied candidates the standing to challenge unlawful election rules such as the outrageous ballots that arrive after Election Day. American citizens concerned about election integrity should celebrate this Supreme Court victory. I thank Judicial Watch’s legion of supporters and our election law team that helped achieve this historic result.”

After Wednesday’s ruling, the election-law landscape appears more even as we gird for midterm election battles.

Some key quotes from the ruling:

• “Win or lose, candidates suffer when the process departs from the law.”

• “Candidates also have an interest in a fair process. Candidates seek to represent the people, and their interest in that prize cannot be severed from their interest in the electoral process.”

• “As a candidate for office, Congressman Bost has standing to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes in his election.”

• “Those who spend untold time and resources seeking to claim the right to voice the will of the people have ‘an undeniably different—and more particularized—interest’ in knowing what that will is.”

• “The counting of unlawful votes—or discarding of lawful ones—erodes public confidence in election results and the elected representative.”

• “Rules that undermine the integrity of the electoral process also undermine the winner’s political legitimacy. ... ‘[R]eputational harms’ are classic Article III injuries.”

Perhaps most important, the court said:

• “Candidates do not need to show a substantial risk that a rule will cause them to lose the election or prevent them from achieving a legally significant vote threshold in order to have standing.”

• “Premising standing on a candidate’s risk of election loss or failure to achieve a certain vote threshold would also convert Article III judges into political prognosticators.”

• “Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns.”

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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent (with Justice Sonia Sotomayor joining) asserted the court was shifting from its “longstanding actual-injury rule to a presumption that certain kinds of plaintiffs are sufficiently aggrieved to satisfy Article III standing, regardless of whether they will experience any particularized harm.”

She was evoking a kind of judicial status quo, especially since 2020 when election officials such as secretaries of state made wholesale changes to existing laws — with zero authority — and courts held that no harm was shown before voting started. After the election? No standing.

“Candidates should definitely have standing to challenge unlawful election rules that affect how votes are counted—because the rules of the game matter before the outcome can be trusted,” the Election Integrity Network said in a statement.

“This decision restores a basic check on unlawful election practices,” said election attorney Cleta Mitchell, the founder of EIN.

Take the case of the “re-voted” ballots in Wisconsin allowing people to effectively “take back” their mail-in ballots. Election integrity law firm Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) challenged it.

Derek Lyons, an advisor to RITE, which filed friend-of-the-court briefs on the Supreme Court case, told Fox News:

“We were able to win that [Wisconsin] case on the grounds that once a ballot is put into the mail, received by the election officials, that’s the end of that person’s vote. There’s no fishing ballots back out and putting them back in, etc. Which obviously creates a risk of errors and double voting and all sorts of other problems. And so they tried to kick us out on standing. We were able to defeat that and secure that victory in Wisconsin,” he said.

Lefties led by uber-Democrat and election law denier Marc Elias predicted (or perhaps promised) a flood of lawsuits, noting in a statement on Democracy Docket.

“After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies filed over 60 lawsuits challenging the results. Many were dismissed quickly for lack of standing. Under this new standard, similar post-election challenges would likely survive that first procedural hurdle, potentially leading to long, protracted delays in the certification of election results, which can further erode public trust.”

His statement misses a key point. If election officials try to flout the law, even nibble at its edges, the high court’s ruling is clear: Candidates have standing to challenge whether election laws are being followed, or broken.

One of the groups that filed briefs in support of the case, Center for Election Confidence (CEC), emphasized:

Candidates and political parties have a direct interest in ensuring election integrity, regardless of whether they can prove a regulation would alter the outcome, and that a “avoiding defeat” rule disregards the Court’s precedent that standing “does not depend on the merits of a claim.”

By requiring candidates to show substantial risk of election loss, the Seventh Circuit’s standard would force judges to forecast elections when determining whether a candidate has standing to seek judicial review of the rules governing their election.

The Supreme Court ruling effectively reverses the Seventh Circuit’s “avoiding defeat” standard. Now the case is headed back to lower courts for the mail-in ballot deadline issues. We are staying tuned. #