Every employee of of every Virginia Office of Elections must take an oath before each election to "prevent fraud, deceit and abuse to the best of my ability in conducting this election."  The proposed changes to the material omissions standards on Virginia voter registration forms virtually guarantee fraud, deceit and abuse on a never-before-seen scale.  Since it is obvious to 99% of the public (see accompanying comments) that the intent of these changes is to enable unqualified persons to vote, SBE is preparing to demand that every Virginia election official violate his oath, his conscience and the law.

The Virginia Code and Constitution require voter registrants to affirmatively state, i.e. check the boxes that state, that they are U.S. citizens, and that they are not prohibited from voting by virtue of felony conviction or mental incapacity. If SBE is concerned that an eligible voter might accidentally miss these boxes and thus be denied the opportunity to vote, the solution is to make the boxes on the form more prominent - not to do away with the requirement to check them.  To demand that registrars accept and process applications on which these boxes are blank violates both Virginia code and constitution.  To assume that a registrant will read the affirmation statement before signing the form and thereby intend this statement to suffice as confirmation of his citizenship and freedom from felony conviction and mental incapacity is ludicrous.  In my ten years of registering voters in Virginia, I have rarely seen anyone even notice the affirmation statement, much less read it.  The proposed change simply removes accountability for making a false statement on the form (a Class 6 felony) from unqualified voters who can then deny that they'd either seen the boxes or read the statement and thus had no intent to deceive.  The result - convicted felons and illegal aliens registering and voting.

All of the proposed changes make verifying the registrant's identity more difficult but none so much as the requirement to accept an application with no Social Security number if the applicant writes "None" in the corresponding space.  It is extremely rare that any U.S. citizen will not have a Social Security number.  Only some of our oldest, rural-born citizens and children of U.S. citizens born overseas who have never been in the U.S. are likely to never have received SS #'s.  This small population does not present a burden on offices of election to verify their legitimacy to register.  However, by allowing ANYONE to claim no SS# and eligibility to vote at the same time, and requiring these applications to be accepted, the door is wide open for non-citizens to register and vote, which is, after all, the purpose of these changes.  It also makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to identify persons who are registered (and voting) in multiple jurisdictions.  Many people have the same name but SS#'s are unique.

Combine the waiving of the requirements to a) provide an positive affirmation of citizenship by actively checking the box and b) provide a SS#, with the little-mentioned perverse regulation allowing the voter registration form to serve as citizenship affirmation in contradiction of DMV or "other state or federal government sources" identifying the applicant as a non-citizen, and you have set the stage for massive voter fraud.

Ideally, Virginia should be safe-guarding our elections by requiring proof of citizenship as a pre-requisite for voter registration.  The proposed changes by Terry McAuliffe's SBE demonstrate utter contempt for the rule of law as they are designed to corrupt Virginia's electoral system in order to defy the will of citizens who may wish to express their disapproval by voting the governor's party out of office.  There is no honor in stealing an election but then the concepts of honor and fairness are foreign to government officials who would retain their power at any price.  McAuliffe and his SBE minions should be ashamed of the destruction of citizens' faith in the electoral process and faith in their elected representatives - especially you, Edgardo.  You were the Fairfax County General Registrar not all that long ago.  That you would betray the citizens of Virginia, your former colleagues and the electoral process you swore to uphold in order to keep your party in power is more than disappointing.  It's despicable.