There's only a little over two weeks left until Election Day in Virginia, and Democrats are nervous. The Wall Street Journal reported that early voting—usually an indicator for Democrat turnout—is down across the commonwealth, and a recent poll by the Trafalgar Group shows Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin ahead.
Youngkin has razor thin lead in #VAGov race:
— Robert C. Cahaly (@RobertCahaly) October 15, 2021
48.4% @GlennYoungkin,
47.5% @TerryMcAuliffe,
1.3% Third Party/Write-In
2.8% Undecided,
According to @trafalgar_group #poll Conducted 10/11-10-13.
See Report: https://t.co/27f8lnj8XJ pic.twitter.com/lTjx7rd6gw
Earlier this week, Republican Attorney General candidate Jason Miyares debated Democrat Mark Herring. Unsurprisingly, Herring had trouble defending his record:
“Mark Herring has failed Virginians. He refused to hold the Parole Board accountable when they broke the law and let murderers, rapists, child abductors, and cop killers out with decades left on their sentences. His criminal first, victim last mentality takes police officers out of schools while making it easier for sexual assaults to be covered up,” said Jason Miyares. “My opponent has made it perfectly clear that his desperate campaign will go as low as it takes to win political brownie points from his union donors and “Defund the Police” activists. His failing campaign is reflective of his failed record as a do-nothing Attorney General. Ralph Northam didn't think Mark Herring deserved a third term - and Virginians don’t either.”
My statement on winning today's Attorney General Debate! pic.twitter.com/7Z9J0jmjzT
— Jason Miyares (@JasonMiyaresVA) October 13, 2021
.@MarkHerringVA doesn't want to debate me again - and this video explains why.
— Jason Miyares (@JasonMiyaresVA) October 14, 2021
Check out the full, "unredacted" video of the Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce AG Debate below.https://t.co/dvgbO65Tka
Democrat candidate for governor Terry McAuliffe continues to deny the legitimacy of past elections and cast doubt on the elections process.
McAuliffe spent the George W. Bush years loudly claiming that Bush stole his election in 2000. That is not hyperbole: At the Democratic National Convention in 2004, McAuliffe bellowed to a rapturous crowd, on national television, “We actually won the last presidential election, folks, they STOLE the last presidential election.” In his 2008 autobiography, he wrote, “I was mad after 2000 because they stole it from us and we let them.” McAuliffe has continued in the subsequent years to claim that the 2000 election was stolen. When offered the opportunity to renounce that charge just this month, he declined to back off and argued (preposterously) that it was acceptable to call Bush’s election “stolen” simply because litigation over it reached the Supreme Court. To this day, McAuliffe will not concede that George W. Bush was legitimately elected president of the United States.
There are many reasons why Terry McAuliffe shouldn’t be the next governor of Virginia. His election trutherism is one of them. | The Editors https://t.co/U0E48NWRyy
— National Review (@NRO) October 14, 2021
Virginia Democratic nominee @TerryMcAuliffe, who has attacked his Republican opponent for concerns about hacked voting machines, said he was "very concerned" about hackable voting machines before the 2020 election.
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) October 13, 2021
Via @CAndersonMO and @thaleigha_ https://t.co/NJ2oPG4zY0 pic.twitter.com/WnFDxN68VM
As RNLA previously explained, local Democrat officials are trying to change the commonwealth's voting laws at the last minute. The Lawyers Democracy Fund wrote a letter to Virginia's current governor, Ralph Northam, urging him to resist the urge to change the state's witness signature requirement for absentee ballots.
1. Even after the General Assembly adopted numerous changes to the election code, they responsibly kept the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots. It is apparent that the General Assembly believes this measure serves a valuable purpose––namely, ensuring a modicum of integrity in the practice of mail voting.
2. Absentee ballot verification procedures, such as Virginia’s witness signature requirement, protect the election process from bad actors seeking to misuse absentee ballots and instill greater public confidence in the integrity of mail ballots.
3. Removing this important measure would damage voter confidence in the election and its outcome.
4. Virginia’s high vaccination rates and declining COVID-19 cases reveal that certainly no state of emergency exists that would show cause for the removal of the witness signature requirement like the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors request.
5. Thousands of voters in this election have already relied on the current rules and requirements to cast their ballots. Changing the rules now would subject Virginia’s absentee voters to unequal treatment and, moreover, would result in voter confusion concerning what rules are actually being enforced.
If you are a lawyer in Virginia interested in volunteering for Election Integrity Operations on Tuesday, November 2nd and the days following, sign up here today!