President Donald Trump said Monday he’d work to end mail-in voting. But in Richmond Monday morning, Virginia legislators and officials said they trusted the state’s system.
“Vladimir Putin said something, one of the most interesting things, your election was rigged because you have mail in voting,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News late Friday. And he followed up Monday with a social media post promising to “lead a movement getting rid of mail-in ballots.”
Virginia expanded vote by mail, also called early absentee voting, a few years back. Its usage has grown tremendously, mostly among Democrats, according to a presentation given by Virginia Elections Commissioner Susan Beals Monday morning. Beals appeared before the House Privileges and Elections committee where she reassured officials heading into 2025’s elections.
“In Virginia we vote on 100% hand marked paper ballots, our machines are certified at both the state and federal level, and also every machine is tested before every election,” Beals said. “Wireless connectivity in machines in polling places is prohibited under state law, and election results are checked three times, and machines are audited, prior to certification.”
Committee Chair Democrat Cia Price did not want to comment directly on Trump’s mail in voting threats, but she did say Virginia’s use of the method was designed to give every registered voter a say.
“The more ways a state has to vote the more ways people have to participate and that is better for our democracy,” she told reporters after Monday’s meeting. She also stressed its importance for active-duty military personnel.
“I think it would be a travesty to disenfranchise those who are fighting for our freedom and our constitution,” Price added.
And Republican committee member Israel O’Quinn stressed voting by mail wasn’t the only option Virginians could use: “In person absentee or voting on election day is by far the simplest and most secure way to do it.”
Beals also reassured officials about a data sharing process her agency had entered into with the U.S. Department of Justice.
“We received a letter from the DOJ, and we are working on our response,” Beals told Radio IQ after an exhaustive series of questions from elected officials “That response is going to include those records that are available under state and federal law.”
According to Democracy Docket, nearly 20 states received requests for voter data under the National Voter Registration Act and some states were cooperating. The request for Virginia’s data, first found by local FOIA hound Josh Stanfield, included the number of registered voters identified as ineligible because of their status as a non-citizen, adjudicated incompetent or for a felony conviction.
Delegate Price was among those who grilled Beals about the data being shared.
Price left the meeting concerned with the Trump administration’s history of attacking the election process: “When you say all these things that allude to not wanting to have future elections, that’s definitely concerning.”
But Price said Beals assuaged her concerns: “I was reassured with the information we heard today.”
Logan Churchwell is with the Public Interest Legal Foundation. His group also scrapes NVRA data to check the accuracy of voter lists. He said such data is usually requested to reconcile data between databases.
“You’re going to find numbers don’t add up and it is a worthwhile exercise to reconcile the state board of elections annual list maintenance report and what they may have told [federal officials],” Churchwell told Radio IQ, noting he’s seen mismatching data in his own searches.
“It might not be anything to panic about,” he added. “It’s not about doubt, it’s about disagreements [in the data] and why they are there.”
Beals said their latest response to the DOJ data request was still in the works.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
