Suspected Double-Voting Referred to Prosecutors in Virginia

Local election officials in Fairfax County, Virginia have referred seventeen cases of suspected double-voting to the Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney. These individuals are suspected of having voted in both Maryland and in Fairfax County, Virginia in the 2012 General Election. Some individuals are suspected of having double-voted in Maryland and Virginia in multiple elections. Click here for the press release from the Fairfax County Electoral Board.

This incident underscores the importance that states share voter registration data on a regular basis. Programs RNLA have endorsed like ERIC and Crosscheck can help both identity and prevent illegal double-voting.  

However, sharing the data is useless if states don't act on it after receiving it. It is essential that officials take decisive action to remove these voters from the rolls once they receive the data from other states. Secondly, it’s important they refer suspected instances of voter fraud to prosecutors. Unfortunately Democrats and their allied liberal groups such as Project Vote and the Brennan Center have repeatedly worked to prevent officials from taking action based on concerns that voters will be mistakenly removed from the voter rolls. They ignore the fact that provisional ballots and other remedial measures can fix any potential mistakes made by officials. Of course, we all know there is no way to retrieve a fraudulently cast ballot by a voter that officials should have removed but did not out of fear that the Democrats would cry "voter suppression". 

There is little that can be done to stop someone from casting ballots in multiple states without states sharing this data and acting on it. It is particularly critical in areas with highly transient populations and in election jurisdictions that border other states. Fairfax County is both highly transient and shares a border with Maryland. It would be relatively easy for a voter to vote in-person in both a Virginia and Maryland polling in the same day, especially since Maryland has few election integrity protections such as voter ID. Based on the news from the Fairfax County Electoral Board, it seems like that very well may have been happening.