#Virginia NAACP Voting Forum, Chesapeake Rs Moving to Cut Black Early Voting Locations?, Trudy Berry #SD09 Update, Prince William Community Foundation
➡️ Rep. Bobby Scott’s Labor Day Cookout is in 17 days on September 4, 2023.
➡️ Early voting in Virginia begins in 35 days on September 22, 2023.
➡️ Election Day 2023 is 81 days from now on November 7, 2023.
Virginia NAACP to Host Voting Rights Forum in Richmond
To attend the 2023 Voting Rights Symposium, please register by completing the form here.
RELEASE – The NAACP Virginia State Conference (Virginia NAACP) will host the 2023 Voting Rights Symposium entitled Let My People Vote!. The 2023 Voting Rights Symposium will be held virtually on Saturday, August 19, 2023, from 9 am to Noon. The Virginia NAACP has partnered with the National Council of Negro Women, Inc. - Richmond Section, National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. Richmond Metropolitan Area Chapter, the Urban League Young Professionals, the League of Women Voters, and NCBCP/ Black Women’s Roundtable- Virginia.
The featured speaker for Let My People Vote! will be Leon W. Russell, Chair of the NAACP Board of Directors. Mr. Russell, a native Virginian who has dedicated his life to fighting for human rights and has served on the National Board of Directors since 1990 in various roles, including Assistant Secretary, Chair of the Convention Planning Committee, and Vice Chair. His peers recognized his decades of work and leadership when they elected him as chair in 2017.
The symposium will also include two panel discussions entitled Protecting Our Vote moderated by Gaylene Kanoyton, Chair of Virginia NAACP Political Action Committee, and The Path to Victory moderated by Tyee Mallory, Virginia NAACP Legislative Coordinator and Senior Political Advisor. The symposium will also serve as the kick-off for our 2023 Election Mobilization.
“In 2023, twenty bills were introduced to restrict or limit absentee voting, an attempt to roll back progress. Virginians cannot be silent on voting. The process for restoring voting rights to returning citizens is now harder. Virginians cannot be silent on disenfranchisement,” said Robert Barnette, President of the Virginia State Conference.
“This symposium will prepare Black Virginians to get out to vote by taking advantage of early voting and preparing our communities for victory in this election.”
Who: Leon W. Russell, Chair, NAACP Board of Directors, Robert N. Barnette, Jr, President, Virginia NAACP, Bobby Scott, United States Representative, 3rd District of Virginia, Tanya Clay House, Executive Vice President, Campaigns and Advocacy, Hip Hop Caucus, Stephanie A. Owens, NAACP National Grassroots Election Protection Project Manager, Ryan Snow, Counsel, Voting Rights Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Tyler Sterling, NAACP National Mobilization Director, Campaigns Civic Engagement, Dominik Whitehead, NAACP Vice President of Campaigns Civic Engagement
When: Saturday, August 19, 2023, 9 a.m. - Noon
Where: To attend the 2023 Voting Rights Symposium, please register by completing the form here.
The Virginia NAACP is committed to the mission to achieve equity, political rights, and social inclusion by advancing policies and practices that expand human and civil rights, eliminate discrimination, and accelerate the well-being, education, and economic security of Black people and all persons of color.
DPVA Statement Ahead of Chesapeake Plan to Slash Early Voting Locations, Eliminate Sunday Voting
From the Democratic Party of Virginia: The GOP-controlled City Council of Chesapeake is poised to vote this evening on an early voting plan that would eliminate Sunday early voting and would cut at least two early voting locations, both of which operated in 2022 in majority-minority regions.
In anticipation of the VA GOP restricting voting access in yet another Virginia locality, DPVA Voter Protection Director, Aaron Mukerjee, issued the following statement:
“The VA GOP leadership in Chesapeake is pursuing a course of action that will make it more difficult for Virginians to vote.
The locations that the Republicans seek to eliminate are located in the heart of the Black community of Chesapeake. This action will unambiguously make it harder for Black Virginians to cast their ballot, and is unmistakably voter suppression.
The Democratic Party of Virginia is calling on the City Council of Chesapeake to abandon their plan to shutter these early voting sites and eliminate Sunday voting. As Democrats, it’s our job to make sure that the right to vote is protected for every Virginian, and that voting is easy and as secure as possible.”
Virginia Elections Board Declines to Help Democrat Blocked from Ballot After Typo
By Graham Moomaw for the Virginia Mercury: Board takes no action after appeal from Southside Senate candidate Trudy Berry.
The lack of a “.gov” in a Democratic party official’s attempted email to the Virginia Department of Elections will apparently leave Democrats without a candidate in a Republican-leaning state Senate district this year.
On Tuesday, the State Board of Elections seemed to ignore an 11th-hour appeal from a lawyer representing Trudy Berry, a Democrat who thought she had done everything necessary to appear on the ballot this fall challenging Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg, in Southside Virginia’s 9th Senate District.
Despite the Democratic Party of Virginia formally backing Berry and calling her its “duly chosen nominee,” the board took no action to add her to the state’s list of certified candidates. Board Chairman John O’ Bannon, a former Republican delegate, briefly addressed the issue without making a definitive statement that the board was rejecting her request.
“I will just remind everybody that at the very first meeting this year of the state board we admonished every candidate to be sure and close the loop and don’t accept that things went through,” O’Bannon said.
In a written memo to the board, Berry’s attorney said local Democratic Party officials assured her on April 3 that all the necessary paperwork for her candidacy would be filed. Berry didn’t learn about the party official’s mistake until July 13, according to her attorney, well past the April 11 deadline for the document to be filed.
I will just remind everybody that at the very first meeting this year of the state board we admonished every candidate to be sure and close the loop and don't accept that things went through. – Board of Elections Chair John O'Bannon
No other board members spoke up on the matter. After hearing from Berry’s backers, the board moved on with its meeting agenda, didn’t raise the issue again and gave no indication it would take up the issue at a future meeting. The lack of action means Berry will remain off the state’s list of official General Assembly candidates and won’t have her name included on ballots being prepared for the start of early voting in a little more than a month.
Jasmine Lipscomb, a Democrat hoping to run against Del. Danny Marshall, R-Danville, also appeared before the board to ask officials to put her name on the ballot despite her feud with party officials over her failure to pay a $500 filing fee and meet other filing conditions set by local Democratic organizers. Board members did not respond after Lipscomb, the only Democrat who stepped forward in her Southside Virginia district, said she “still would love to run if that is possible.”
The paperwork dilemma involving Berry, a U.S. Air Force veteran who lives in Lunenburg County, was the latest of several recent controversies in which local party officials failed to file paperwork that doesn’t come from candidates themselves.
Berry was the only Democratic candidate who filed all the necessary paperwork in her district, which under normal circumstances would have automatically made her the Democratic nominee.
However, 🌹Clem Oliver, a Danville Democratic leader who passed away last month after battling cancer, mistyped an email address when she attempted to file a key piece of paperwork with the state officially declaring Berry the Democratic candidate in a district based largely in the city of Danville and Pittsylvania, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties.
Without action by the board, said Berry’s attorney Liz Burneson, more than 150,000 voters in the district will see only one name on their state Senate ballot.
“Because of a three letter typo made by a woman who was gravely ill,” Burneson said. “That’s really an unconscionable result. And this board has the authority to avoid this unconscionable result.”
The state Democratic Party — which has come under fire from Berry and some activists for not catching the issue sooner or having a more rigorous system of ensuring its prospective candidates make the ballot — also officially appealed to the state to let Berry appear on the ballot.
Because of a three letter typo made by a woman who was gravely ill. That's really an unconscionable result. And this board has the authority to avoid this unconscionable result. – Liz Burneson, attorney for Trudy Berry
Shyam Raman, DPVA’s executive director, appeared at Tuesday’s meeting to read the board a letter from party Chairwoman Susan Swecker declaring that, from the party’s perspective, Berry was a valid candidate who shouldn’t be denied ballot access due to a “typographical error.”
“We do not know if Ms. Oliver received a bounceback or automated response after omitting the ‘.gov’ from the Department of Elections email address,” Raman said.
Berry’s supporters have pointed out that the elections board recently gave other candidates wiggle room for party mistakes outside of their direct control. In 2019, the board allowed House Majority Leader Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, and Del. Clint Jenkins, D-Suffolk, to appear on the ballot after similar paperwork flubs by local party officials. In 2021, Del. Dave LaRock, R-Loudoun, received similarly lenient treatment from the board.
The five-member elections board is currently controlled by a Republican majority because state law dictates that working control goes to the party that won the last gubernatorial election. The decisions made in 2019 and 2021 occurred under Democratic-controlled boards.
Replying to Raman, O’Bannon said the board decides paperwork appeals on a case by case basis.
“Some have been approved and some have not been approved,” O’Bannon said. “And they were bipartisan. It was both parties involved in that.”
O’Bannon indicated he and other board members were interested in taking DPVA up on an offer to discuss “some things that we can do tangible to reduce the likelihood of this happening in the future.”
Berry’s legal memo argues that, under state law, she should’ve been the Democratic nominee regardless of party certification because she was the only contender for the spot and met all other candidacy requirements within her control. The document also suggests the “extreme remedy” of rejecting her candidacy over a minor typo is so imbalanced it could run afoul of First Amendment protections dealing with ballot access.
Internal Department of Elections emails obtained by Josh Stanfield, a left-leaning Virginia activist who specializes in Freedom of Information Act requests, show that DPVA staff contacted the state to discuss the issue last month.
“What do we want to do?” Elections and Registration Services Director Paul G. Saunders III wrote in a July 13 email to Elections Commissioner Susan Beals. “Technically, we didn’t receive it by the deadline but they did attempt to send it by the deadline.”
In an email Tuesday afternoon, Berry said she had not yet decided whether she will take legal action.
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