Virginia election officials acknowledge voters mistakenly removed from rolls

Virginia State Police are changing what information gets reported to ELECT.
A spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Elections said Tuesday the state is working to resolve an issue that caused an unknown number of eligible voters to be removed from the state’s rolls. The move follows VPM News reporting that found people with probation violations lost their eligibility to vote under changes the department instituted over the last year.

ELECT spokesperson Andrea Gaines said state election officials were working with Virginia State Police to identify the names of people whose registration was “canceled in error,” a process she said began Tuesday. In an email, Gaines wrote that ELECT would then pass along those names to local registrars to immediately reinstate the voters.

“Whenever ELECT receives information about a problem with an individual’s registration, we work diligently to research and address the issue,” Gaines said. She did not provide a timeline for reinstating all of the affected voters.

The response marks a change in tone for the department and its leader, Commissioner Susan Beals. In a Sept. 22 email to state Sen. Scott Surovell (D–Fairfax), Beals defended the department's voter registration cancellations, saying it “strictly follows” state law.