It is amazing the attempts some will make to restirct voting. Absentee voters must already pass several tests to have their legitimate votes counted, and the Electoral Board proposes with this rule making process to add even more restrictions. 

The proposed rules for voiding an otherwise valid absentee ballot add even more layers to a bureaucratic process that is already more complicated than necessary to allow someone's absentee vote to be counted. 

Virginia suppresses voter participation with its restrictive rules on who may cast an absentee ballot. Voting absentee requires the voter to obtain the government's advance approval before an absentee ballot can even be issued. The reason must be stated on the absentee ballot application, and the reason must be justified in many cases with additional information such as an out of town location or the name and address of one's employer. In states where no reason is required to vote absentee, voter participation rates are substantially higher than they are in Virginia.

Our democracy would benefit from greater voter participation.  The proposed new rules will reduce voter participation and increase the universe of otherwise valid absentee ballots which will be ruled invalid by these new rules. 

There is simply no reason why an incomplete address line ahould invalidate a voter's absentee vote. Upon approval of the application to vote absentee, the government verified the voter's address and mailed the absentee ballot to the voter's address, the government delivered the ballot to the voter at the address of record, and the voter properly marked the ballot to cast their vote. Omitting "Drive" or "Lane" or "Street" on the address line of the return envelope has nothing to do with voting and should not be used against the voter to reject an otherwise properly marked absentee ballot from being counted in the election.

Similarly, leaving off "Junior" or "III" or "IV" after one's name, if another voter with the same name perhaps from the previous generation lives at the same address, is an attempt to make rules where none are needed for effective election administration.  The Registrar's office receives a signed application for an absentee ballot, and the voter's signature is verified against the voter's signature on file.  To be counted, the returned absentee ballot is sealed in an envelope which requires not only the voter's signature but that of a witness. The signature matching process is adequate proof that the voter, and not his father, grandfather, or other relative living at the same address, marked the ballot.

Proposing new ways to invalidate otherwise valid absentee votes is infringing on the constitutional right to vote, one of the most sacred rights conveyed to the citizens of the United States, including the citizens of Vriginia. The right to vote is not earned, it is not a privilege for only the few, it is the right of every citizen, and artificial barriers to the free exercise of that right destroy our democracy. Our Electoral Board should be concerned with expanding voter participation and not with finding ever more creative ways to deny voting rights to citizens of the Commonwealth with increasingly bureaucratic strictures which do nothing to improve on effective conduct of elections.