Virginia Lawyers Weekly

Virginia’s attorney general told state election officials last week that they must count perhaps hundreds of federal absentee ballots despite a state law ordering some of them to be cast aside.

A dispute arose last week after Fairfax County’s registrar said state law bars him from counting dozens of federal absentee ballots because the witnesses failed to include their addresses on ballot applications, as required by a 2002 state law designed to stamp out voter fraud.

In an advisory opinion Monday, Republican Attorney General Robert McDonnell said that federal law trumps state law on this issue, and federal law calls for the ballots to be counted.

McDonnell said in an interview Monday that he expected the State Board of Elections to relay his instructions to local registrars across the state following a meeting on Tuesday.

He said he did not know exactly how many ballots are at stake, but noted that both Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads have large military presences, and that the ballots are often used by military personnel.

After Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s campaign highlighted the issue in press statements last week, Suleman’s office was flooded with hate mail from people claiming that he was seeking to disenfranchise the military.

But Suleman said he is the one who brought the issue to the attention of elected officials, seeking a cure for the defect in state law that was forcing him to cast the ballots aside.

He said that only 63 ballots were affected by the issue, rather than the 250 that had been reported. Of those, only perhaps half a dozen were ballots sent in by military personnel, he said.

And he said he will gladly count the ballots provided he gets the word from the State Board of Elections to follow McDonnell’s advisory opinion.

McDonnell said he attributes no malice to Suleman’s interpretation and acknowledged that state law does indeed include a requirement in some cases for a witness to an absentee ballot to provide his or her address.

But federal law does not include such a requirement, and he said the federal law supersedes state law.

Close this Window Bookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites / Bookmarks

Print RSS Feed Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BuddyMarks BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments

Connotea del.icio.us Digg diigo DotNetKicks DropJack dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com

Furl Google Hugg Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine oneview OnlyWire PlugIM Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Twitter Webride Windows Live Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

 If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

More »