Fairfax County, Virginia, officials are violating election law two weeks before the off-year gubernatorial election, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
"We write election rules in advance so everybody knows what they are and everybody thinks it’s fair," J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel at the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), which represents the Virginia Institute for Public Policy (VIPP) in the lawsuit, told Fox News on Wednesday.
"When you start suspending rules in some counties, you run the risk that people don’t accept the results," Adams warned. "You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game, and that’s what Fairfax is doing."
According to Virginia election law, voters must include the last four digits of their Social Security numbers when filling out an absentee ballot application. Voters may omit the numbers when filling out the absentee ballot application in person at an election office, but they must include the numbers when sending the application in by mail.
"The law says you have to collect this information because it protects the right to vote. It protects the way to vote because it makes sure that nobody’s ballot is obtained by someone else," Adams told Fox News.
The complaint, filed Tuesday, cites the testimony of Christine Brim, a registered voter. Brim testified that Fairfax County Election Board Chairman Stephen M. Hunt confirmed to her via email that the Fairfax County General Registrar, Scott O. Konopasek, "had instituted a procedure to approve absentee ballot applications on which the applicant has not provided the last four digits of his or her Social Security number."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/virginia-county-is-violating-election-law-amid-governor-race-lawsuit-claims
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