Too Progressive

All because of some petty squabble between the Chesterfield county registrar and the SBE dating back to a lawsuit in 2005, according to an article appearing on the Richmond Times Dispatch website.  According to the RTD, registrar Lawrence C. Haake III represented an SBE employee in a racial discrimination case against the board and won.

Read more of the insane feud that may have disenfranchised 299 people in Chesterfield county after the jump.

Registrar Lawrence C. Haake III last year represented an African-American employee of the State Board of Elections in a racial-discrimination case against the board and won.

Haake believes bitterness over the case was the catalyst for the board’s investigation into Chesterfield’s election process and the reason for the decision not to count 299 handwritten votes, cast when some polling places ran out of official ballots.

He argued that racial discrimination was ongoing and had spilled over into the term of the current State Board of Elections secretary, Nancy Rodrigues, appointed to the post by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine last year.

I don’t care about any of this, really.  Virginians and those in other states that experienced similar problems should be outraged at the fact that people are being disenfranchised because of a lack of a sufficient number of ballots.  As I said in my earlier post on this subject - it’s not as if Virginia was the first state to vote this primary season.  When the big story that came out of states voting ahead of us (other than the winner, of course) was that precinct after precinct found themselves running short on ballots because of the enormous turnout (at least on the Democratic side), why is it that Chesterfield county is so disorganized that they still ran out? 

Also, the claim by the Chesterfield county registrar that he believes the SBE based it’s decision to invalidate 299 votes because of a personal vendetta against him should be investigated to the fullest.  If it’s discovered that there is any truth behind it, appropriate action should be taken.  I’m sick and tired of people being raped of their right to vote in this country.

Posted on March 8th, 2008