This letter from a Virginia Registrar is Proof Positive That the GOP will continue to try Suppressing the Vote

This letter was mailed September 30th of this year after the Virginia ACLU protested the registrar's misleading mailings to students denying them the right to vote their current residence/domicile in Virginia. The added emphasis in the letter is mine, btw.

Look at the bizarre language--we have "evidence but no proof" of voter fraud? The "fraud" is that somehow students are being encouraged to vote? This needs more than polite letters from the ACLU--this needs some serious injunction level litigation.

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September 30, 2008

Ms. Glenberg,

In response to your inquiry of 9-29-2008.

I agree that a Dorm address MAY be the domicile of an individual. We allow registration in dorms when the law in Virginia has been met.

Law states that an address cannot become a domicile until the previous domicile has been abandoned.

It is my belief that on occasion an individual has the intent to create a domicile by the abandonment of the previous domicile, but the act of applying to register to vote has been taken on by third party groups who have at best simply misinformed on-campus individuals and at worst lied to them to persuade the applicant to “sign up to vote”.

We know that on-campus individuals have been told that “Absentees do not count.” That, “law requires them to register with a dorm address.” When at school, and my personal favorite, “You are still a resident of Pennsylvania, even If you register in Radford.”

It is also my firm belief that by contacting these applicants, many of whom I believe have signed under coercive false pretenses, and helping them understand Virginia law I have allowed their first voting experience to be a more positive one.

We have learned of applications being changed AFTER the applicants signature was applied. We have evidence but no proof that third party groups are filling out dorm room applications PRIOR to the individual being asked to register to vote. YES applications filled out with an applicant’s information before the applicant is approached in his or her residence hall.

Because of these illegal efforts;

I will continue to contact individuals who apply with non-traditional or non-streeted addresses (not only students).

I will continue to apply Virginia law as it is written.

I will not disregard the domiciliary half of the residency law.

Every Individual Citizen has the right to vote.

No individual has the right to register to vote in a community based upon convenience, false information or lies.

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of these circumstances.

Tracy D. Howard,
General Registrar of Voters for the City of Radford VA.