VICTORY!!!!! Virginia State Board of Elections DENIES Romney's request to suppress votes 6AUG12

VICTORY in our fight to protect voter registration rights in Virginia. Thanks to all who participated in petition campaigns by MoveOn.org, Credo and others, and if you are wondering what this is all about check out my earlier post Romney suppressing votes in Virginia? 2AUG12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/romney-suppressing-votes-in-virginia.html

We have very good news to report from Richmond. This morning, the Virginia State Board of Elections denied the Mitt Romney for President campaign's request to suppress thousands of voter registration applications and refused to initiate a criminal investigation into lawful registration efforts by the nonpartisan Voter Participation Center.¹

The Virginia State Board of Elections reached this decision after hearing from over 8,300 Virginians, including members from CREDO Action, MoveOn and Progress Virginia, who asked the Board to deny the Romney campaign's request to conduct a sham investigation meant to shut down efforts to help women, students and minorities register to vote.

The activism from CREDO Action members in Virginia made a big difference. Since last Thursday, over 3,300 our members in Virginia signed our petition. Our members also poured phone calls into the State Board of Elections, making sure staff was hearing that Virginians care deeply about voting rights. And then our members met up with CREDO Action's Josh Nelson this morning in Richmond and packed a special hearing held by the Board. Our members all wore special "Virginia is for Voters" stickers to deliver our signatures and to provide public comments.

The Virginia Board of Elections rarely hears from the voters of Virginia in large numbers. The activism from our members made it clear to the Board that we want them to work to help register more Virginians, not make it harder to vote. The Board's decision is also important because it has national implications in our fight against the right wing's relentless effort to disenfranchise thousands of voters across the country.

The purpose of the attack on Voter Participation Center was not just to suppress the votes of students, women and minorities in Virginia, but to warn other nonprofit groups across the country that if they dare to register voters on a large scale, they would face costly and distracting investigations meant more to harass than to enforce the law. Thanks to your actions, we will now be able to point to this decision from a bipartisan state agency as an important precedent if the Republicans and their conservative allies try to advance similar type of politically motivated flimsy voter-registration complaints in other states.

This is the beginning, not the end of our fight to protect voting rights. Thank you for standing with us to defend the right to vote.

Becky Bond, Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. Sam Brock and Rob Cardwell, "State rejects Romney request to investigate voter registration forms," WTVR.cm, August 6, 2012