In August, Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) told WTOP the thing to worry about this election was President Donald Trump. “We shouldn’t underestimate the efforts he might be willing to undertake to sow doubt,” she said. The state Department of Elections, she added, would spend the coming weeks making sure Virginians knew their rights.
On Sept. 26, Jeff Turner’s family received a letter telling them his voting rights were restored. Jeff Turner died more than two years ago.
His brother-in-law, William Ferguson of Franklin County, had a question. He asked it on camera for WSLS: “What would stop me from going now and saying that I’m Jeff Turner and getting the voting rights back?” The governor’s office answered with a warning: it says the letter does not register anyone and that fraud is a felony. In the Committee’s view, a threat of prosecution afterward is not a safeguard, and it does not tell Ferguson what stops the attempt in the first place.
The letter came out of Spanberger’s plan to restore rights to about 66,000 people with felony convictions, WSLS reported. It came with a QR code. Scan it, and you land on the state elections site, ready to start registering.
Turner is not the only one. WWBT reports that Fox News found this had happened at least twice. WSLS says at least two families have gotten letters for relatives who died. One father told Fox News his daughter died in 2024. Her letter said the governor’s office had “completed review” of her case.
Spanberger says her office is “digging into it.” Asked about the reports of dead recipients, she said there are a number of cases where it “appears to be the case.” Then she pointed at the databases. They do not talk to each other well enough, she said.
In the Committee’s view, that amounts to blaming the computers.
Former Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) was blunt. “We weren’t restoring rights of people who were dead because we would know they were dead, because we looked at every single name,” he told WWBT. The Washington Examiner reports Youngkin restored rights for fewer than 10,000 people in four years, and each one had to apply. Spanberger announced 66,085 in one shot.
In the Committee’s view, that is the whole story. One governor says he read every name. The other restored 66,085 in one announcement and now says the systems failed.
Fair is fair. A letter does not register anyone. WSLS says there is no evidence from the letters alone that anyone has registered or voted as a dead person. The governor’s office says doing that is a felony, and people who try should expect to be prosecuted. The Committee does not claim anyone has voted as a dead person.
But Ferguson’s question was about the rules, and in the Committee’s view the rules are thin. Virginia does not generally require ID to vote by mail. A person voting in person without ID can sign a statement and still cast a regular ballot. And state law already says the Department of Health must send elections officials a weekly list of people who have died. WSLS also says it remains unclear why these letters went out anyway. WSLS calls the weekly list a safeguard. It does not say whether that list is checked against the governor’s restoration mailing. In the Committee’s view, it should have been, before any letter went out.
So here is where Virginia Democrats have left you. The governor says the danger to the election is Trump sowing doubt. Her own office mailed a restoration letter to a man who has been dead for two years, and has not said why. In the Committee’s view, that raises the question of whether the state can tell the living from the dead, and the doubt did not come from Trump. It came in the mail, with a QR code.
Early voting is already underway, and Amendment #3 is on your ballot. It would make restoration automatic on release from incarceration, without any action by the governor, and it would write that rule into the Constitution.
In the Committee’s view, a state whose letters reached the dead has not earned a permanent version. The Fairfax County Republican Committee recommends a NO vote on Amendment #3.
Ferguson asked what would stop someone from saying they are Jeff Turner. On Nov. 3, you get to decide whether the state has answered it.