Dick Sizemore-Hall’s Mailing It In caught this author’s attention. So did the comments. Neither somehow mentioned four Democratic elephants in the room on voting rights:

• federal intervention into the voter education and assistance processes,
• voting by the mentally disabled,
• ballot harvesting, and
• Voting by non-citizens.

The left looks at that list and sees opportunities, not problems.

Joe Biden and the federal storming of the voting process

President Biden marshaled the federal government to “help” people vote by issuing Executive Order 14019.  It read in part:

It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation, in order to enable all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.

Sec. 3. Expanding Access to Voter Registration and Election Information. Agencies shall consider ways to expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.

   (a) The head of each agency shall evaluate ways in which the agency can, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, promote voter registration and voter participation. This effort shall include consideration of:

      (iii) ways to provide access to voter registration services and vote-by-mail ballot applications in the course of activities or services that directly engage with the public, including:

(A) distributing voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms, and providing access to applicable State online systems for individuals who can take advantage of those systems;

(B) assisting applicants in completing voter registration and vote-by-mail ballot application forms in a manner consistent with all relevant State laws; and

(C) soliciting and facilitating approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations and State officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises. (emphasis added).

Citizens never found out who those approved third-party organizations were and how they were solicited and “facilitated” by federal agencies to “assist” applicants and voters. Or what “assist” turned out to be in practice.

Unsurprisingly, the Heritage Foundation and the Brennan Center had different takes on the executive order. Take your pick. But note that the Brennan Center somehow neglected to mention the third-party organization issue. This author would be shocked if the Brennan Center, a leftist stalwart, were not one of them.

Voting by the Mentally Disabled

From the Virginia Constitution: “As prescribed by law, no person adjudicated to be mentally incompetent shall be qualified to vote until his competency has been reestablished.” (emphasis added) Adjudications for incapacity can only be ordered by a Circuit Court.

The Circuit Court Clerks are required to send the Department of Elections a monthly report on all persons adjudicated incapacitated. The Virginia Department of Elections reports that, in the five years from September 1, 2020, to August 31, 2025, 754 registrations were canceled for being adjudicated mentally incapacitated. VDH tells us that 164,000 people aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s Disease in Virginia.

So more than 163,000 people with Alzheimer’s are eligible to vote. How many of them actually vote? The answer certainly seems statistically significant. Who helps them vote? Assisted living or nursing home staff? One of Joe Biden’s “approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations?  

The answer is not found in any records.

Ballot Harvesting

Ballot harvesting is legal in Virginia.

Attorney General Miyares wrote an opinion that “under § 24.2-707 of the Code of Virginia, a mailed absentee ballot may be returned, at the request of the voter, by a third party through the mail or at a drop-off location.”

Anyone can gather the votes.

Some of the most fruitful places for ballot harvesting are long-term care facilities. The National Conference of State Legislatures posts a list of 22 states and Guam that have supervised voting in long-term care facilities.

Virginia is not among them.

Voting by Non-citizens

Voting by illegal immigrants is generally considered one, and perhaps the paramount, intended outcome of the Biden administration in opening the floodgates. It is widely applauded by Democrats hoping to turn purple and red states blue. Like those in the General Assembly.

Vorting by non-citizens is currently blocked by the Constitution of Virginia, Section 1. Qualifications of voters 
In elections by the people, the qualifications of voters shall be as follows: Each voter shall be a citizen of the United States, shall be eighteen years of age, shall fulfill the residence requirements set forth in this section, and shall be registered to vote pursuant to this article.

We’ll get back to the Virginia Constitution’s “citizen” term in a minute.

Illegal voting. The Republican Party of Fairfax County has commented on the process for stopping non-citizen voting in Virginia.

Officials typically discover a noncitizen registration only when the individual identifies himself as a noncitizen during an unrelated government interaction. For example, a noncitizen registers to vote at a Virginia DMV, checking the “U.S. citizen” box. Months later, he receives a jury summons because voter rolls are used to identify potential jurors, and on the court questionnaire, he marks “noncitizen” to avoid serving. This triggers a notice to election officials, who then send him a letter asking him to affirm his citizenship.

If he admits he is not a citizen or fails to respond, his registration is canceled. But if he affirms citizenship again, with no proof required, he remains on the rolls. Either way, prosecution for perjury is extremely unlikely. And if he never receives a jury summons in the first place, the system may never discover the noncitizen registration at all. The system depends on accidental discovery and voluntary admission rather than systematic verification.

This author, having looked, has found nothing to contradict that anecdote or the conclusion drawn from it. He does not think that practice is widespread, but the fact that it can happen without an effective system to stop it is troubling.

Legal voting. Legal voting by non-citizens is already happening in cities and counties across the country. Sixteen Maryland jurisdictions permit it. The left strongly endorses it.

Another change to the Virginia Constitution? The Democratic majority in the Virginia General Assembly will not stop at allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections. The minute they think it will pass, we will see a proposed change to the qualifications of voters in the Virginia Constitution from “citizen” to “resident.”  It will be presented to the public as a matter of “fairness” in state elections.

Virginia could do that in state elections because we hold them in odd-numbered years, avoiding federal elections.  (Democrats are unlikely to acknowledge that odd-year voting is a legacy of the former Confederate states, which used that arrangement to bar blacks from voting in state elections.)

The General Assembly has floated what is effectively a trial balloon.  Every voter who votes this month in favor of the Virginia Constitution change to permit partisan gerrymandering will be presumed to be a voter for the change from “citizen” to “resident”.

If Louise Lucas’ gerrymander amendment passes, the proposed change to “resident” is next. Book it.

Bottom line

Voting rights are a complex subject. It is interesting what a little research will turn up. Views on the left and those of tradition-minded citizens are totally opposed, as in nearly everything, at the level of detail on voting rights offered here and in “Mail it in.”

This article is offered in an attempt to complete the record of those differences.