Lawsuit challenging Virginia voting system on hold

RICHMOND

A federal lawsuit filed against Virginia alleging unfair election practices may be delayed and not resolved until after Election Day.

Not long after a hearing on the suit was postponed Thursday morning, court records surfaced showing that the advocacy groups that filed the suit had withdrawn their motion for an immediate injunction.

The suit, filed this week by the Washington, D.C.-based Advancement Project and the state NAACP chapter, contends that Virginia is ill-prepared to handle the massive voter turnout expected on Tuesday.

Although state election officials disagree, they reacted with guarded relief Thursday to news that the suit is likely to be delayed.

"We hope," responded State Board of Elections chair Jean Cunningham when asked about the lawsuit being postponed until after the election.

The lawsuit claimed that voting machines were unfairly distributed in localities including Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

That allocation pattern, Advancement Project officials said, could lead to long lines at the polls and disenfranchise voters, particularly those in minority communities.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Thursday called the analysis "suspect" because it relied on old data and did not account for thousands of new machines and other improvements made to the system in recent years.

"We're not new at this," he said. "We had a high turnout election in 2004.... And people did wait in some lines, but the turnout was still high and we ran a clean election."

Other remedies sought by the plaintiffs were an extension of polling hours, which are 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the use of paper ballots instead of voting machines.

While concerns remain about the distribution of voting machines in predominantly black precincts, an attorney for the voter rights groups said Election Day activities will be monitored before the lawsuit moves forward.

Negotiations between the plaintiffs and government officials yielded some concessions on allocation of voting machines, according to a written statement from the Advancement Project.

Virginia Beach registrar Pat Harrington said Thursday that she decided this week to pull 19 to 21 voting machines from her reserves and place them in precincts that had significant growth in voter registrations.

"We didn't reallocate according to the lawsuit; we reallocated according to our numbers," she said.

Harrington said her staff was still logging new registration data until last week. Once that work was finished, she said, she re-evaluated her resources.

Virginia Beach will now have 790 electronic machines for voting and 97 for demonstrations for its approximately 283,000 registered voters.

Harrington said the city now has a small reserve to handle any breakdowns or other emergencies.

Norfolk Electoral Board chairman James Hinshaw said Thursday that adjustments were made based on voter registration numbers. Three voting machines were pulled from reserves and placed in polls, he said. About 20 other machines were redistributed.

Pilot reporters Tim McGlone and Debbie Messina contributed to this report.

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com