Delegates praise bill aimed at increasing election security

Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Executive Order 35, which was implemented to increase election security, and codifies the election procedures put into place during the Youngkin administration, is getting high marks from Del. Eric Phillips and Wren Williams.

“It’s something to secure our elections. Everyone wants to make sure we have fair and secure elections by people who are actually residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia,” Williams, R-Stuart, said.

Phillips, R-Martinsville, said he supports Youngkin’s Executive Order, and sees election integrity as an American and Virginia issue rather than a political one.

“All of us, regardless of what party we’re a part of or what candidate we’re voting for, should want safe, legal, fair elections where the people that should be voting are voting and the people who shouldn’t be voting are not,” Phillips said.

Youngkin, who signed the order on August 7, said the Virginia model for election security works.

“This isn’t a Democrat or Republican issue, it’s an American and Virginian issue. Every legal vote deserves to be counted without being watered down by illegal votes or inaccurate machines. In Virginia, we don’t play games and our model for election security is working,” he said.

Youngkin said Virginia uses 100 percent paper ballots with a strict chain of custody, and counting machines that are not connected to the internet and are tested prior to every election.

“We do not mass mail ballots. We monitor our drop boxes 24/7. We verify the legal presence and identity of voters using DMV (Department of Motor Vehicle) data and other trusted data sources to update our voter rolls daily, not only adding new voters, but scrubbing the lists to remove those that should not be on it, like the deceased, individuals that have moved, and non-citizens that have accidently or maliciously attempted to register,” he said.

Under the order, Williams said only paper ballots will be used during elections.

“We (Patrick County) already use paper ballots. This is a paper balloting process that allows the entire state to use paper ballots instead of different localities using different systems. Our county already used paper ballots, and many of the counties around here. We did not use voting machines, we used counting machines, and those counting machines can be verified through the use of paper ballots,” he said.

Williams added that he has not heard of any pushback against the order.

“I don’t know why anybody would push back on making sure that dead people are off of our voter rolls and non-citizens are not allowed to vote, and that we have clean voter records for the Commonwealth,” he said. “If you recall back in 2023, they announced that they took almost 800,000 deceased individuals off the voting rolls.”

Phillips said he believes the idea is simple and doesn’t understand how anyone could be against election integrity.

“None of these measures are to keep people that are legal to vote from voting. They’re to make sure that only legal people vote that have the right to vote in Virginia,” he said.

Phillips said he believes there’s a lot of mistrust surrounding elections. Focusing on it and taking common sense action such as the order should help voters feel better about the ability to trust the election’s outcome.

“If people feel like things are being done in a way that are fair and above board that makes sense, then hopefully you won’t see so many people always having to question the elections after the fact,” he said.