Getting the Last Laugh

Readers of PJ Media know that I was recently denied reappointment to a local electoral board in Virginia after my initial three-year term had ended.   That was apparently due in part to local Democrats being upset about my “various positions on voter identification.”  They lobbied local county judges to not renew my appointment.

Well, Virginia Governor Bob McDonald recently signed into law a new voter identification law that tightened up Virginia’s existing ID requirements.  Voters will now have to show a government-issued photo ID when they vote and will receive a free photo ID if they don’t already have one.  This is the exact legislative recommendation I have made in countless papers, commentaries, speeches, and the book I coauthored with John Fund, “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk (Encounter Books 2012).

Virginia joins states like Georgia, Indiana, Tennessee, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi that take seriously the issue of protecting the security and integrity of the election process.  But I have to admit that I laughed when I heard the news that Virginia now has exactly the type of voter ID requirement that so upset local Democrats that they apparently got me booted from working as a local election official in Virginia.  It may be a little more difficult for the Democratic Party to try to get rid of all of the members of the Virginia Electoral Board Association from counties across the state who will be enforcing the new photo ID law.