A good-government group asked a federal court to be allowed to intervene in an apparently collusive Democratic Party lawsuit in Virginia so the group may safeguard electoral integrity protections that the Democrats seek to dismantle.
For a half-century, would-be voters in Virginia have been required to provide their Social Security number on their registration application form, but now that Democrats are about to lose control of the governor’s and attorney general’s offices in coming weeks, the party is arguing that this longstanding requirement somehow imposes a burden on the right to vote, according to papers filed with the court by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).
“After the 2021 election of a Republican Governor in the Commonwealth, and within days of a Democratic Attorney General being replaced, Plaintiffs are suddenly concerned with alleged reluctance of voters providing to them their full Social Security number,” PILF stated in documents filed Dec. 15.
“Plaintiffs recently made an almost identical claim against the State of Arizona and failed” in Arizona Democratic Party v. Hobbs, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled on earlier this month.
The lawsuit, Democratic Party of Virginia and DCCC v. Brink, was filed on Dec. 7 in Richmond in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Defendant Robert H. Brink is being sued in his official capacity as chairman of Virginia’s Democratic-dominated State Board of Elections.
Brink, a Democrat, represented Arlington in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1998 to 2014, serving 10 years as a member of the House Committee on Privileges and Elections. He was senior legislative adviser to Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe from 2015 to 2018. Three other state officials are also being sued. The plaintiff, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), is the official campaign arm of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
PILF President J. Christian Adams criticized the plaintiffs’ motives.
“This lawsuit is an attack on basic election integrity measures,” Adams said in a statement.
“These rules exist to protect the right to vote and must always be followed to ensure free and fair elections,” said Adams, a former U.S. Justice Department civil rights attorney. “The Supreme Court has ruled that states have the power to pass measures to prevent election fraud. This election integrity provision has existed for 50 years.”
PILF filed a motion to intervene and a proposed answer in the lawsuit on Dec. 15, in hopes the court will allow it to participate as an intervenor-defendant in the proceeding.
Indianapolis-based PILF describes itself as “the nation’s only public interest law firm dedicated wholly to election integrity,” saying that it exists “to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections.”
PILF stated in court documents in this case that the existing defendants “will not adequately defend the election integrity laws of the Commonwealth.”
“Even if the Defendants do defend the case, they are unlikely to defend against these allegations as strongly as the Foundation. Defendants may be inclined to enter into a swift consent decree, rather than robustly defend the laws of the Commonwealth. Worse still, Defendants have a recent history of issuing illegal election administration guidance to county election officials plainly contrary to Virginia law.”
The law firm of Marc Elias is representing the Virginia Democratic Party.
Elias, who has a long history of successfully challenging electoral integrity programs in court, also is a major figure in the “Russiagate” conspiracy, which aimed to overturn the result of the 2016 presidential election. A lawyer who represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the 2016 presidential election cycle, Elias hired Fusion GPS in April 2016 to conduct opposition research against then-candidate Donald Trump. That research effort culminated in the salacious, now-discredited 35-page dossier written by former British spy Christopher Steele that purported to tie Trump to the Russian government.
Elias and Carol Louise Lewis of the Virginia Attorney General’s office, who is representing board members, didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment by press time.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Dec. 16, 2021, in The Epoch Times.