Virginia voter registration effort proves legit after fears of scam

A day after State Police warned about what appeared to be someone trying to scam Virginia voters, authorities said Friday that all is well.

The voter registration drive is legitimate.

State Police, working with the State Board of Elections, began an investigation after more than a dozen reports from residents across the state saying they had received unsolicited phone calls Wednesday and Thursday about registering to vote.

They were told to expect a mailing with registration information and that they should complete and send in, said Corinne Geller, a State Police spokeswoman.

"The messages did not specify who or where the packets were coming from," Geller said.

Nancy Rodrigues, secretary of the State Board of Elections, said her agency was unaware of any such effort, raising worries someone was trying to get people's personal information. That prompted the public warning.

By Friday, however, investigators obtained some of the packets and tracked them to the source.

Women's Voices Women Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, made the calls and sent the mailings, Geller said.

The group said it is part of an "unprecedented" effort to register women. Trouble was, it was largely unheard of. The calls to potential voters started even before the effort was announced. The organization said it is targeting more than 228,000 unmarried women in Virginia and 22 other states.

Sarah Johnson, communications director for the organization, said Friday that not including information about the source of the voter registration effort was "absolutely an accidental omission."

She said the group was changing its nationwide phone alerts to make clear who is coordinating the effort.

Johnson said that of all the states where the effort is under way, Virginia was the only one where there had been reports of problems.

"I think it would be a shame if it hampered the effort in Virginia," Johnson said, because

the point is for single women to "make their voices heard in our democracy."

In 2008, "for the first time in history, a majority of households are headed by an unmarried person, and the number of women who are single, separated divorced or widowed is equal to the number of married women," Page Gardner, president of the organization, said in a statement.

In Virginia alone, 228,441 citizens are expected to receive the voter registration forms in the mail, the organization said.

"The voter registration application contained in the packet is a legitimate voter registration form commonly accepted by the State Board of Elections," Geller said Friday. Included in

the mailings are prepaid envelopes addressed to the State Board of Elections.

"Those individuals who may have completed this form and sent it in, do not have to worry," Rodrigues said. "The personal information provided in the application is safe."

She said state elections officials will forward any forms received from the effort to the appropriate local registrar's office for processing.

Steve Stone, (757) 446-2309, steve.stone@pilotonline.com