VA Org Mailing Voter Registration Forms Based on Partisan Firm Catalist's Data?

VPC has been mailing tens of thousands of registration forms in Virginia, already completed with a person’s name and address, prompting many complaints to the SBE. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginia “residents” receiving pre-completed registration forms from VPC have included a Virginia Beach woman’s pet cat and a Bedford County man’s dead dog. Others went to a Hanover County resident’s grandmother who has been dead since 2006; an 8-month old infant who had died; a resident’s daughter who had never lived in Virginia; a resident’s dead husband; a non-citizen; and another resident’s mother who died in 1988 and never lived in Virginia. Apparently, VPC has sent out 5 million registration forms nationwide and 112,000 in Virginia just in June.

The July 2 SBE letter expressed its concerns over VPC sending out thousands of applications to ineligible voters in Virginia. Those forms violated Virginia election law by pre-filling out the name and address of eligible voters; Virginia residents are supposed to fill out this information themselves. The letter also criticized the “unnecessarily flippant manner” shown by the VPC when it started getting complaints about its mailings going to pets and dead voters. In fact, VPC posted a video on its website showing a dog talking to a cat playing with a registration form, with the dog saying, “There are humans getting folks all upset when someone’s pet gets an application in the mail to vote. They want to shut down voter-registration before a bunch of people they might not agree with get a vote.” VPC was criticized by an editorial in the Richmond Times-Dispatch for making “light of this irresponsible behavior.”