A judge in the Shenandoah Valley ruled that registrars cannot count ballots received after Election Day if they are missing information indicating when they are mailed. The ruling strikes part of new voting regulations.
Last week the State Board of Elections approved a regulation allowing registrars to count ballots with missing or illegible postmarks, as long as they were received by noon on Friday after the election.
Then an electoral official and a Republican party official sued, and the Frederick County circuit court heard the case Tuesday. Since Election Day is in less than a week, Judge William Eldridge issued his opinion from the bench Wednesday.
He said that ballots without postmarks won’t be counted if it can’t be confirmed from the Intelligent Mail Barcodes that the ballot was sent by election day. If the information from the Intelligent Mail Barcode indicated it was mailed by election day the ballot would still be valid. Ballots with illegible postmarks will still be counted if they bear a signature dated from Election Day or before.
The Attorney General’s office said it's weighing its options to appeal and that this ruling should impact only a small number of ballots.
The lawsuit was brought by a Republican official from Winchester and an electoral board member from Frederick County.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit on behalf of Thomas Hess, the board member. The conservative group is headed by J. Christian Adams who was on President Trump’s now-disbanded election integrity commision and has filed lawsuits across the country attempting to purge voter rolls.
Governor Ralph Northam is encouraging voters to drop off their completed ballots or vote in-person rather than send them by mail. The last day to vote early in-person is Saturday.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
