Kaine: Va. ready for vote

By ANDREW CAIN
Media General News Service

Published: November 3, 2008

Related:

Virginia NAACP sues governor, claims state unprepared for election

Ahead of today’s federal court hearing on the NAACP’s voting-rights suit, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine appeared on four network television broadcasts and said Virginia is ready for a record turnout on Election Day.

“We’ve more than doubled the number of people” who voted early by casting absentee ballots, from 222,000 in 2004 to about half a million this year, Kaine said yesterday on ABC.

This year, the state has 10,600 voting machines, up from 5,900 in 2004, Kaine said. The state has 30,000 precinct workers, up from 19,000 four years ago.

“Might the lines still be long? Sure,“ Kaine said. But “I think the day is going to go smoothly and everybody who wants to get a vote, we’re determined to make sure that vote counts.“

This afternoon in U.S. District Court in Richmond, Judge Richard L. Williams will hear the request of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Washington-based Advancement Project for an injunction against Kaine and state elections officials.

Noting the long lines for people who voted absentee, the parties want Williams to either order paper ballots to speed up voting tomorrow, or extend voting hours in Richmond, Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

On MSNBC last night, Benjamin Jealous, national president and CEO of the NAACP, criticized Kaine as being “flip” for noting recently that “we wait in line to buy coffee at Starbucks.“

Jealous also noted the “blow-up” during Virginia’s Feb. 12 Democratic primary, when some Chesterfield County precincts ran out of ballots. He said the NAACP is seeking a “simple fix” to dealing with long lines at polling places, and that paper ballots would help.

Kaine, who appeared yesterday on ABC, MSNBC, Fox and CNN, noted that the chairwoman of Virginia’s electoral board, Jean Cunningham, is black, that its vice chairman, Harold Pyon, is Korean-American, and that Nancy Rodrigues, secretary of the State Board of Elections, is Hispanic.

“So this isn’t like the old-fashioned Virginia electoral board,“ Kaine told ABC.

Observers from the Justice Department, independent groups and both political parties say they will watch Virginia’s election process closely.

Jeff Frederick, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, sent a message to supporters that the state GOP is seeking “poll watchers inside the polling stations to monitor voting to make sure that the election is not stolen from us.“