RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) – Some Virginians were wrongly taken off voter rolls — and some were mistakenly allowed to vote — after poor communication and the “inadequate” development of the state’s voter registration system led to “system failures,” the state’s inspector general’s office found.
But the state watchdog office did not find signs that staff from the agencies intentionally removed eligible voters from rolls or allowed ineligible ones to vote.
The Office of the State Inspector General (OSIG) was asked by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to review how eligible Virginians were improperly removed from voter rolls after probation violations and how ineligible voters were allowed to stay on the rolls after being convicted of another felony.
The investigation was announced days before the Virginia Department of Elections shared that nearly 3,400 people were mistakenly removed from voter rolls after their probation violations were misclassified as new felony violations on a database maintained by state police.
Virginians automatically lose their voting rights after a felony conviction. Virginia is the only state in the country that leaves the voting rights restoration process in the hands of the governor, per the Brennan Center for Justice.
After reviewing documents and interviewing members of the governor’s administration, the elections department and state police, Inspector General Michael Westfall shared his office’s findings in a Dec. 15 letter to Gov. Youngkin’s chief of staff.
The probe concluded that “insufficient communication among agencies” and the “inadequate system development” of the Virginia Election and Registration Information System (VERIS) led to “system failures as Virginia law and restoration rights changed.”
How ineligible voters stayed on voter rolls
In October 2022, Virginia’s elections department was told that someone who had their voting rights restored was not removed from the state’s rolls after being convicted of a new felony.
The state’s elections department found a “coding issue” in VERIS that made it unable to remove someone marked to have their voting rights restored from the eligibility list despite a new felony conviction, per the inspector general’s letter.
“This was due to the design of VERIS,” Westfall wrote. “The system could not account for the potential need of an individual to be marked ineligible to vote after having their rights restored even after another felony conviction because the system could not account for a new conviction and nullify the restoration.”
The department fixed the issue by comparing the date when someone had their voting rights restored to when any felony convictions were reported in the Computer Criminal History (CCH) system maintained by state police.
How voters were incorrectly removed from rolls
A Virginian reported losing their voting eligibility because of a probation violation in July 2023, which the state’s inspector general concluded could have been the result of two events: the correction of VERIS’ coding issue and a practice initiated under then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D).
The correction of VERIS’ coding issue, the inspector general found, led it to incorrectly remove people from voter rolls who were reported as committing a felony probation violation.
“Without ELECT’s correction of VERIS, individuals reported from CCH for felony probation violations wouldn’t have been able to be disqualified after having their rights restored due to VERIS’ faulty logic,” Westfall wrote.
Another event that could have led to the issue, per the inspector general, was a policy change under then-Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in March 2021 to begin restoring people’s voting rights before they completed probation.
“This created the potential for an individual to have a probation violation reported from CCH to ELECT after an individual had their rights restored,” Westfall wrote.
In conclusion…
Westfall’s office substantiated allegations that issues with the state’s registration system removed eligible voters from the rolls and kept ineligible voters on them.
“Changes in the restoration law as well as ELECT’s VERIS software malfunction and VSP’s dissemination of information to ELECT led to the disqualification of some voters who were eligible to vote, as well as the ability of others to vote when they should have been disqualified,” he wrote in his letter.
But the inspector general’s office “did not uncover any indications that staff from either agency intentionally disqualified voters or willfully permitted ineligible citizens to vote.”
“These findings are consistent with our current actions and will help correct the decades-old process to ensure that those that are eligible, can vote,” Youngkin spokeswoman Macaulay Porter said in a statement Monday.
Virginians who had their voting rights restored, advocates and lawmakers cast doubts on the state inspector general’s investigation after it was announced, echoing calls from Virginia Democrats in Congress who asked for a federal investigation by the Department of Justice.
What comes next?
The elections department and state police told OSIG they would use new systems to replace VERIS and CCH, planning on implementing them by July 2025.
“Both ELECT and VSP explained that new software procurements were initiated prior to these data failures to solve upcoming law changes and outdated functionality of the current systems,” Westfall wrote in his letter.
The OSIG investigation, limited to interviews and reviewing documents, covered from March 1999 to October 2023, per the state inspector general’s office.
The inspector general’s office shared two recommendations “to ensure future voting eligibility integrity” moving forward:
- “ELECT and VSP should continue to procure their new systems, and the development and implementation of new software should follow proper Information Technology project management guidelines utilizing VITA’s Project Management Division.”
- “ELECT and VSP should collaboratively review their respective systems and data transfers between the systems whenever any changes to restoration law or process occur, to ensure the appropriateness and accuracy of decisions made by or based on those systems.”
