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Electoral Board seeking legal decision on candidate qualification

Jeremy M. Lazarus | 9/2/2016, 2:27 p.m.
Richmond has put a hold on printing ballots for the Nov. 8 general election while the city’s Electoral Board tries ...

Richmond has put a hold on printing ballots for the Nov. 8 general election while the city’s Electoral Board tries to figure out whether two candidates’ names should be listed.

The three-member board on Tuesday sent an urgent request to Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring for an opinion on whether the names of mayoral candidate Michele R. Mosby and School Board candidate Kevin A. Starlings are still eligible to be on the ballot.

The board asked Mr. Herring to issue the opinion by Aug. 31, citing a looming deadline to provide the printer with the final list of candidates’ names.

The board acted after the state Department of Elections declined to provide any legal guidance on unprecedented issues.

Ms. Mosby and Mr. Starlings are affected by the Virginia Supreme Court’s July decision to throw out Gov. Terry McAu- liffe’s blanket orders restoring the voting rights of felons who had served their time.

Mr. Starlings was among the 206,000 felons whose right to vote and run for office were restored through Gov. McAuliffe’s original April 22 order. Based on that order, Mr. Starlings reg- istered to vote and also filed the necessary paperwork to run against incumbent Jeff M. Bourne for the 3rd District seat on the Richmond School Board.

The state Supreme Court decision, though, revoked the rights of Mr. Starlings and other felons who had registered to vote. That negated the sworn statement Mr. Starlings signed to file as a candidate asserting he was “qualified to vote and hold the office for which he is a candidate.”

In a letter issued Tuesday, C. Starlet Stevens, chair of the city Electoral Board, asked Mr. Herring if the board is “legally required to remove (Mr. Starlings’) name from the ballot because his registration to vote was invalid at the time he filed his state- ment of qualification or for any other reason?”

Ironically, Gov. McAuliffe restored Mr. Starlings’ rights again last week, but this time under a case-by-case procedure that the state’s highest court did not question in its ruling.

Meanwhile, in the case of Ms. Mosby, one of the people who signed her petitions to run for office is a felon whose rights were restored and then revoked by the court’s decision.

According to the board, Ms. Mosby only had 500 signatures of qualified voters accepted — the bare minimum. If the felon’s signature is disqualified, she would be one signature short of making the ballot.

In her letter, Ms. Starlet asked the attorney general to state whether the board must re-examine all of the petitions submit- ted by candidates to determine if any signatures are from felons who lost their rights due to the court’s decision.

And if that re-examination is needed, she also asked if the board would then have to remove a candidate like Ms. Mosby from the ballot if it is determined she had too few valid signatures to qualify.