Mailers from Virginia elections officials directed more than 60,000 people to the wrong polling place, including 30,000 in Northern Virginia.
Those mistakes follow even more error-riddled effort in Southwest Virginia, where an additional 30,000 voters were affected. Some notices in that part of the state were sent to physical addresses instead of P.O. boxes, then re-sent to the boxes but with the wrong information, theAnd earlier this month, the department disclosed that an unspecified technical glitch had left about 107,000 voter applications in limbo for months.
Fairfax County Democratic Committee Chair Bryan Graham suggested Youngkin’s hectic political travel schedule might be to blame. A potential 2024 presidential candidate, Youngkin has sought to raise his national profile by stumping for GOP gubernatorial candidates in about a dozen states, including some who embrace former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
“It is disappointing that the Party now in charge of administering our elections is so woefully incompetent at managing something as simple as a voter information mailer,” Graham said in a written statement. “Instead of gallivanting across the country for election conspiracy theorists, Gov. Youngkin should be in the state he was elected to serve in order to lead his Administration in fulfilling their duties to the people of the Commonwealth.
“The Department of Elections will cease its relationship with the printing vendor and will explore all legal remedies,” it said.In Southwest Virginia, the errors affected voters in the cities of Bristol and Norton as well as Amherst, Buchanan, Dickenson, Grayson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Tazewell, Washington and Wise counties. Corrected notices have been sent to all voters there, state officials said.