More than 400 election officials from around Virginia – including Electoral Board members, General Registrars, State Board of Elections staff members, and others – attended legally-mandated training in suburban Richmond on August 16 and 17.
After two days of speeches, PowerPoint presentations, workshops, and networking, Virginia’s chief elections official, Nancy Rodgrigues, sat down with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner to talk about the challenges faced by the elections community in 2010 and beyond.
Rodrigues (that’s spelled with an “s” at the end, not a “z”) was nominated by Governor Tim Kaine to be Secretary of the State Board of Elections (SBE) in September 2007 and confirmed by the General Assembly in January 2008. Her first major election in that position was that year’s heavy turnout presidential election, which was the first time since 1964 that Virginia was perceived as competitive between the two major-party candidates.
Challenges
“We’re facing the challenges that a lot of government is facing,” said Rodrigues, first citing “increased public scrutiny, which we welcome, because there’s transparency in elections.”
The second major challenge is “dwindling resources.”
Rodrigues explained that since she has become Secretary, the SBE’s “funding has dropped 24 percent.” This requires the Board to “do things more efficiently and rethink our paper processes,” looking toward technology – such as electronic pollbooks -- as a solution.
The budget cutbacks have resulted in a “redistribution of staff.”
Rodrigues gave the example of how the SBE has contracted its procurement with another sate agency and, as a result, “has actually increased its purchasing power” by buying in bulk.
Another example she offered was the outsourcing of the SBE mailroom, which used to have three fulltime employees.
“Now we use the Department of General Services and the state mail services,” with ten mailroom staffers who can “expand and contract” based on the SBE’s needs. The change saves “the taxpayers of Virginia $17,000 a year” in rent for mailroom space alone.
Lawsuits
The SBE is now facing two lawsuits from congressional candidates who failed to get their names on the ballot for the November election. Libertarian Matt Mosley in the Eighth Congressional District and independent Herb Lux in the Seventh District both live outside the districts in which they are running. A quirk in election law puts them at a disadvantage because they cannot witness voter signatures on their own candidate petitions.
Rodrigues explained that these are “what we call prima facie lawsuits, meaning that they’re challenging Virginia state law. Virginia law makes it very clear that [while] someone [may] circulate their own petitions, a candidate can [only] do so if they live in the district. That is at the crux of the matter right now.”
She laughed and added, “One of the things I learned quickly in my job is: I never take lawsuits personally.”
Turning serious, she continued, “We are really working very closely to expedite this because we have an election this November and, in fairness to all parties involved, we need to get this resolved,” but concluded, “more than that, because it is current litigation, I’m not able to comment.”
Public Scrutiny
Looking toward the future, Rodrigues said she believes “elections have changed forever since, first 2000 in Florida, but most recently, in Virginia in 2008. Our commonwealth became a battleground state for the first time in 44 years.”
Virginia now has more than 5,000,000 registered voters. That means, Rodrigues said, that “there is much, much more public scrutiny [and] there’s much more interest in democracy.”
Smiling, she admitted that “I, for one, am excited about that because I believe that it is important to have the citizenry interested in that. I’m delighted that they’re stepping up to the plate, and they certainly have the right to question anything here” at the State Board of Elections.
NOTE: Richard Sincere has been a member of the Electoral Board for the City of Charlottesville since March 2004.
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