Virginia election officials are violating the state’s constitution by allowing individuals who have never resided in the commonwealth to vote in its elections, a lawsuit filed Monday alleges.
Brought by the Republican National Committee (RNC), Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections (RITE) PAC, and a Virginia voter against the Virginia State Board of Elections and other state election officials, the legal challenge contests provisions of state law collectively permitting individuals who “were born outside of the United States” and “have never resided in the Commonwealth” to register and vote in Virginia elections. This practice, the plaintiffs claim, violates the Virginia Constitution’s residency requirements governing electoral contests.
“The Virginia Constitution draws a clear line: voting is reserved to residents of the Commonwealth and of the precinct in which they vote,” RITE PAC President and CEO Justin Riemer said in a statement. “That requirement cannot be overridden by statute or replaced with a legal fiction based on someone else’s residency.”
The challenged provisions deal with Virginia’s implementation of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). As The Federalist previously reported, the federal law “was originally intended to serve only active military and federal personnel stationed overseas [but] is now serving mostly nonmilitary citizens,” with civilians eclipsing military voters in the 2020 election.
According to the RNC and RITE PAC, Virginia’s “current statutory scheme” for individuals “covered” to vote overseas “includes a category of ‘covered voter’ that explicitly dispenses with the Virginia Constitution’s residency requirement and substitutes a parent or legal guardian’s last-eligible voting location as the now-adult registrant’s Virginia voting residence.”
Put another way, the state is allegedly permitting individuals born to U.S. military personnel and civilians overseas to register and vote in the commonwealth’s elections based on their parents’ last-eligible Virginia address — despite having never resided in Virginia themselves.
“That practice violates the Virginia Constitution,” the plaintiffs’ lawsuit reads. “Virginia may extend registration and absentee voting procedures to qualified Virginia voters abroad, including military and overseas citizens who previously resided in Virginia and remain Virginia domiciliaries for voting purposes. But Virginia may not create bona fide Virginia voters out of individuals who have never resided in Virginia, solely by reference to a parent’s historical voting eligibility.”
The RNC and Co. requested that the Circuit Court for the City of Richmond to declare the challenged statutory provisions as “unconstitutional and void as applied to registration or voting in Virginia by persons who are not residents of the Commonwealth and, therefore, ineligible to vote under” the Virginia Constitution.
The plaintiffs further asked that the court issue preliminary and permanent injunctions that enjoin defendants from “accepting or processing voter registration applications from individuals who do not and have never resided in Virginia and from issuing absentee ballots to or accepting, processing, or counting absentee ballots from such never-resident registrants.”
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