SBE members;

Bottom Line Up Front: Scrap this whole thing and start over. If you must tinker, please only do so 90 days after the statewide gubernatorial canvass so that changes may be absorbed during lighter workload cycles.

I will not repeat the issues surfaced by the hundreds before me. I will, instead, point out three other things critical to your deliberations.

First, you have a responsibility to personally read and review all of the comments given in Town Hall and public hearings. You must NOT rely on a staff recharacterization of what it is that they think you ought to hear.

Second, you must become aware of the unintended consequences of changing the form and the rules you promulgate for their processing by your 133 General Registrars. Specifically, the fiscal costs of retooling the software used by DMV and VERIS to accommodate the proposed changes. The professional staffs of Registrars around the Commonwealth will have to be retrained to input the forms into the system. We’re good at it and we’re fast and accurate. BUT, we’ll have to work very hard at a much slower pace to retrain our brains and our fingers to find the information on the new forms and ensure it gets input into the proper fields in the software to eliminate as many system rejections as possible the first time through. Last minute registrations – and they are always at the last minute – bring our routine daily processes to a screeching halt before every election. Stafford had 1015 applications on the last day before the 2012 Presidential Election. And while it is our job to do so, putting all of these into VERIS while striving to be error free at the last minute will become increasing more complicated; and therefore more time consuming, at a time when we also have to get ready for the election itself. Again, there is a COST for revising software and for retraining our data entry procedures. There is a further manpower cost associated with needing to add temporary staff at the last minute just to accommodate the last minute voter registration rush.

Finally, by altering the form and the rules by which they are processed put the entire system at great risk. General Registrars are sworn officers and it is solely our responsibility to register voters. Your proposed rules put us, and our registrants, in an untenable position. With every voter registration application – both the current one and the proposed one – General Registrars have three choices when voters fail to properly complete the forms. (1) We can register the voter and ignore the omissions – which is what your staff prefers; (2) we can deny the registration and send the voter a letter detailing why we did not accept their incomplete registration and furnish them with another application in hopes that they will actually follow the instructions this time; or, (3) we can turn the application over to our Commonwealth Attorney for prosecution because the applicant lied on a legal document.

Granted, the third alternative above seems harsh but consider that the Social Security Administration says the 99.99% of all Americans younger than 80 years old have a social security number (SSN). The Constitution and the Code require that General Registrars deny applications for failure to provide SSNs. Your form and your rules encourage registrants who just do not want to share their SSN or folks who just plain don’t read the form or the instructions to gloss over that requirement by checking “none.” Then your rules require the General Registrar to accept the form and register the voter anyway. I in good conscience cannot do that – nor will I.

Your new rule set also allows a registrant, with or without the assistance of another party – including third party voter registration drives – to leave all check-mark questions blank, then self-identify as disabled, and then not sign the application. No Constitution and Code required affirmations via check-box and no affirmation, “that the above is true,” on the signature line. Your rules direct General Registrars to register people with just a name and an address. I cannot imagine a single Registrar who would shirk their sworn duties and follow your instructions in these types of situations.

If you are looking for a nearly perfect version of the Voter Registration form look no further than 06/2004 to resurrect to best one we’ve had in decades: http://www.vdh.state.va.us/LHD/Roanoke_City/documents/forms/VirginiaVoterRegistrationApplication.pdf