Vote registrar gets bad rap for trying to do the right thing

In the past two weeks, E. Randall Wertz has been threatened with lawsuits, called names and accused of trying to subvert democracy.

"It's been rough," he said Monday.

Wertz is voter registrar in Montgomery County and is at the heart of the latest media maelstrom.

Two weeks ago, he made the mistake of issuing a press release aimed at helping Virginia Tech students decide where they should register to vote: back home or in Blacksburg.

In it, he tried to clarify some of the maddeningly oblique guidelines published on the Virginia State Board of Elections' Web site. (For example, a series of "legal residence" questions, such as "Are you claimed as a dependent on your parents' income tax return? If you are, then their address is probably your legal residence" and "Would your health, automobile or other insurance coverage be affected by a change in your legal residence?")

Wertz issued one press release and when the Obama campaign complained about his interpretation of the guidelines, issued another, which was nothing more than a "copy and paste" from the state Web site.

Campaign workers complained even louder, he said.

By the end of the week, Wertz was being called a "partisan hack" by bloggers and others who described his actions as "chilling" and accused him of old-fashioned vote suppression and intimidation.

The implications were clear and ugly. It's the South, so it must be a case of red-state reactionaries trying to keep Obama voters from the polls.

Just one problem: The State Board of Elections is run by a gubernatorial appointee. That means Democrat Timothy M. Kaine, Barack Obama's friend, is indirectly responsible for the voter-residence guidelines that even the esteemed New York Times described as "murky."

Wertz is hardly a Republican operative. He's appointed by an electoral board made up of two Democrats and one Republican. He describes himself as a "nonpartisan" public servant who doesn't even vote in primary elections.

On Monday, the state board was feverishly fixing its Web site and the legal-residence language.

James Alcorn, policy adviser to the secretary of the Board of Elections, told me the revisions could be online within a day.

Too late for Wertz, who foolishly relied on the old ones.

"I'm offended, and so is everyone in my office," he said of the angry response to his actions. "We're one of the most liberal jurisdictions (in Virginia). We allow students to register from their dorms. There's no conspiracy here."

Wertz said facilitating college registration was at the top of his to-do list when he was appointed in 2004. He contacted registrars in areas that housed colleges and universities to find out how they helped students register.

"Frankly, I liked the way they handled it in Charlottesville, where they left it all up to the students," he said, "and that's hard for a Hokie to admit."

Wertz said in Montgomery County, as in Charlottesville, the students decide if they want to be legal residents. After that, registration is automatic.

The registrar said he published the guidelines in response to some "misinformation" spread by campaign workers on campus.

"They were telling the students that absentee ballots wouldn't count," he said. "That they only count when it's a real close election."

In the past week, about 3,000 Tech students have registered. That made the registrar happy.

"We want them," Wertz said.

The blogosphere may not buy it, but I do.

Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net