With Obenshain Lagging, Cuccinelli Changes Rules for Counting Provisional Ballots

Working to Steal an Elections?

Through out his time as Virginia Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli has consistently shown that he believes he is above the law and has sought to ignore rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court.  Now, Cuccinelli may be taking this arrogance - and I would argue lawlessness - to new heights as he directs the Virginia State Board of Elections to change the rules for counting provisional ballots in a fairly transparent attempt to save GOP extremist from joining Cuccinelli and "Bishop" Jackson" in the loser column.  Had Cuccinelli resigned from office to run for Governor like his predecessors over the past 30+ years, this obvious conflict of interest would not exist.  (Rachel Maddow had a great overview of this situation on her show this evening).  Here are highlights from Election Law Blog:

While most of the provisional ballots across the state have already been counted, that’s not true in Fairfax County, where Democrats expect they would pick up further gains for Herring. So this development reported by WTOP was a big surprise:

A last-minute change means Fairfax County voters who cast provisional ballots may face troubles getting them counted.

Nearly 500 voters cast provisional ballots in the county, many more across Virginia, in Tuesday’s election. But the promise from Democratic and Republican parties to make sure their ballots got counted is now no good.

The state Electoral Board decided Friday to change the rules that had been followed in Fairfax County and ban legal representatives from stepping in to help get the ballot counted, unless the voter him or herself is there.

County Electoral Board Secretary Brian Shoeneman says he and board chairman Seth Stark disagree with the ruling, but they have to comply.

“The office of the Attorney General advised us that this was the correct reading of the statute,” State Board of Elections Secretary Don Palmer says.

[I]it seems that the rule goes against both Fairfax County practice (which allowed legal representatives to argue for the counting of ballots rather than the voter in person), as well as Virginia’s Board of Elections posted rules (see page 21 of this pdf: among people who may attend decisions on counting provisional ballots: “Legal counsel and representatives of the person who cast the provisional ballot.”)

There are a lot of factual and legal things unclear (to me at least) at this point.  (1) Is the new VA rule a change in practice? (2) Was it necessary to assure uniformity so as to prevent a Bush v. Gore type inequality in vote counting problem? (3) Did the rule timing mean that it did not assure uniformity even if that was its intent? (4) If a court reviews this question, which trumps: assuring uniformity or following written, past practice put in place before the current decision? (This is an issue I wrote about in The Democracy Canon in the last part of the article.) (5) Will any of this make a difference to the election outcome?  Presumably, if there are provisional ballots not counted in Fairfax because of the lack of the voter’s presence in person, then a court could later order those ballots counted—but there’s a lot riding on being out in front at the time of certification on Tuesday. (6) Was the rule pronounced Friday for sound election administration reasons, or to give the Republican the edge (as Democrats have already suggested)?

The sooner Ken Cuccinelli permanently leaves the Virginia political scene, the better it will be for  the residents of the Commonwealth who value honesty, integrity and democracy.