Voters disenfranchised

“The law is a ass!” Robin Lind, secretary of the Goochland Electoral Board declared, quoting Charles Dickens in frustration as he explained how more than 300 voters who live in the no man’s land between Goochland and Louisa counties will be unable to cast ballots for those who spend their tax dollars in this November’s local election.

He cited Code of Virginia 24.2-304.03B which states “all references in this section to boundaries of counties and cities shall be interpreted to refer to those in existence on April 1,2011, and as reported by the United States Bureau of the Census in the 2010 Census reports provided  pursuant to United States Public Law 94-171, not withstanding subsequent boundary changes  by law, annexation, merger, consolidation, or the voiding of boundary changes therefore made final.”

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"The Goochland Electoral board greatly regrets  doing this, but we feel we must follow the law as it has been shown to us,” Lind said. Indeed, Goochland has a reputation for high election turnouts by making it easy  to vote. 

The Board of Supervisors, said Lind, has no standing authority in the matter and therefore no power to fix it. State law gives the power to assign voters solely to the local electoral board, which operates independently of county government.

For 250 or so years, a portion of the boundary between Goochland and Louisa has been, well, fuzzy. The two counties have held talks on and off in an effort to delineate the border, with no result for decades.  Lind contended that the problem may have been caused by early surveys that indicated that boundary was “on the ridge” and marked by stones long since moved by agriculture. He referred to parcels in  question as “Edge cases” that in some cases are in both counties.

Lind explained that voters are assigned to precincts based on U. S. Federal census boundary lines, which take precedence over all other demarcations. In theory, jurisdiction borders and census boundary lines should be the same, but on this fuzzy local no man’s land, they are not.

Last June, the Commissioner of the State Board of Elections emphasized that his department “has no oversight in ensuring voters are placed in the correct precinct,” after being notified that there were hundreds of mis-assigned voters in Goochland and Louisa due to county boundary inaccuracies. 

The Goochland Electoral Board adopted a policy agreeing to permit the General Registrar to accept any voter transferred into Goochland from an adjoining jurisdiction, but required EB approval before transferring voters out of the county.

In August of 2018, Louisa and Goochland Counties coordinated efforts by their GIS departments to identify misplaced voters and Census line errors  for submission to the federal census bureau  for the 2020 Census with mutual agreement on actual boundary lines.

In this year’s General Assembly session, 22nd District Senator Mark Peake, who represents Goochland, introduced legislation to deal with the situation until a more permanent solution is found. That legislation SB1102 passed the State Senate with no opposition. A summary follows:

Congressional and legislative district boundaries; alignment with boundaries of counties and cities; review of a voter's registration. Provides that, for purposes of congressional, Senate, and House of Delegates districts, if a boundary of such a district virtually coincides with the boundary between two or more localities, the boundary of the congressional district shall conform to the boundary between the localities that has been (i) agreed upon by those localities, (ii) adopted in ordinances by those localities, and (iii) reported by those localities to the United States Bureau of the Census. The bill requires the State Board of Elections to review any change of boundary to determine whether there is evidence that the change was made with fraudulent intent, and if it appears there was fraudulent intent, to refer the matter to a circuit court to approve or deny the change. If two or more localities sharing a boundary cannot agree on the true boundary line between them, the boundary shall be that which was in existence on April 1, 2011, and was reported by the United States Bureau of the Census in the 2010 Census reports provided pursuant to United States Public Law 94-171. The bill provides a process by which a voter who believes he has been incorrectly assigned to an election district or precinct may request and have his assignment reviewed by the general registrar and, if necessary, the governing body of the county or city.

However, when the legislation got to the Elections and Privileges Committee of theHouse of Delegates, its companion bill died in committee by a 17-5 vote. John McGuire, 56th District, was one of five delegates to support of the bill, while Delegates Ransone, Ingram, Jones, S.C., O'Quinn, Rush, Fowler, Leftwich, Head, Sickles, Rasoul, Lindsey, Price, VanValkenburg, Turpin, Tran, Convirs-Fowler, and Krizek voted to kill it, essentially depriving the affected citizens of their right to cast ballots for their local officials, and some state offices this November. Wonder if they were too busy checking their yearbook photos to deal with a serious issue like this.

On April 15, the Goochland electoral board and registrar met with their counterparts from Louisa, who had already moved voters to comply with state law, which relies on U. S. Census line boundaries. At that time, the Goochland electoral board voted to accept voters from Louisa who had been identified as being in Goochland and those in Goochland to Louisa. According to Lind, 100 voters have been transferred from Louisa to Goochland, 227 from Goochland to Louisa with four pending.

In the meantime, Goochland and Louisa counties are submitting identical census boundaries to be used in the 2020 census, which should clear up the mess, at least for voting, by the next redistricting in the spring of 2021.

Understandably, the voter affected are furious. One gentlemen contended that the situation is a clear case of taxation without representation. Local elections are often decided by a few votes,  making this more egregious. While still troubling, affected voters will have representation at the state level.