Rosanna Bencoach – C-VILLE Weekly

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Georgia is not alone in removing voters from the rolls—Virginia does too, affecting tens of thousands of voters. —Jessie Audette

Georgia fell under the notoriety spotlight for removing an estimated 107,000 voters from its rolls in a tight election year under the state’s “use it or lose it” law, which starts the process if a voter skips one election.

In Virginia, if you get a notice from the state Department of Elections asking if you’ve moved from the address used to register and don’t respond, you could find yourself purged from the voter rolls —although it will take a few years for that to happen.

People are typically taken off the list of registered voters if they move or die. “If a local registrar gets a notification from a reliable source, the Department of Elections will send a notice to ask if you’ve moved,” says Albemarle registrar Jake Washburne.

A reliable source includes the U.S. Postal Service, which provides the names of those who have filed forwarding addresses. Social Security and Vital Records let the elections department know about deaths, and courts report felony convictions and adjudications of incompetency.

If the voter does not respond to the notice asking if she’s moved, that voter is put on the inactive list, says Washburne, and is purged if she doesn’t show up to vote in two successive federal elections.

The purges are done in odd-numbered years after the federal elections and they’re done by the state, says Charlottesville Registrar Rosanna Bencoach.

According to state voter registration statistics for 2017, the elections department purged 3,272 Albemarle voters, 685 of whom died and 1,467 moved out of state. In Charlottesville, the state purged 3,975 voters. Of those, 233 were deaths and 978 moved out of state.

Campaign collection: Supporter files warrant in debt against council candidate

On February 22, Jim Moore, a supporter of two-time City Council candidate Kenneth Jackson, sent out a Facebook message to a long list of recipients titled “Help Ken,” seeking payment from supporters for an overdue $2,000 loan to avoid taking Jackson to court on March 20 (after C-VILLE went to press).

“In desperation to purchase TV time, Ken asked me to lend him $2,000 against the $2,545 balance in the account,” Moore wrote. Jackson and his partner signed a personal note, but, so far, says Moore, he hasn’t received any payment.

Moore set up a GoFundMe to collect on the debt, but after complaints from other supporters, he disabled the account.

A campaign finance report indicated that as of the end of the reporting period on November 30, 2017, a $2,000 loan made by Moore to the campaign on October 31 had a zero balance, according to Rosanna Bencoach, Charlottesville’s general registrar. She says there is no entry for loans repaid on that report, “so this may be in error.”

Bencoach also told C-VILLE that Jackson’s campaign finance filing for December reports that the loan from Moore was repaid on December 12.

Moore says the loan has not been repaid.

Other odd information appears in Jackson’s campaign finance reports. One donor, allegedly named “Mary Mary,” donated $700 and lists her occupation as “horse.”

When political donations are collected in Virginia for a non-federal campaign, campaigns are required to collect the name, home address and occupation of the donor. Fundraising campaigns on Gofundme.com do not typically collect home addresses or occupations.

At least two GoFundMe accounts were created in connection with the campaign: one that raised money directly for Jackson’s campaign last fall, and Moore’s short-lived effort to collect on his loan.

According to Rick Sincere, a former long-time member of the Charlottesville Board of Elections as well as the one-time chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, this form of fundraising may potentially be a violation of campaign finance laws.

“Using GoFundMe to raise campaign money is probably illegal, just as ‘passing the hat’ at an event would be, since you can’t properly trace the source of the donation for attribution to a particular donor or determine whether the source of funds is a foreign national, for instance,” Sincere says.

Moore says it was never his intention to run afoul of campaign law.

On the Facebook group page, he wrote, “OK. I’m sorry for this. I apologize and will remove this campaign. I let my frustration turn into vengeance. Please be aware that I did this with much advance notice and full knowledge by Ken.”

Says Moore, “I made a personal loan and I am disappointed it wasn’t repaid.”

Jackson, who says he had nothing to do with Moore’s loan collection efforts, first ran for City Council as the Republican nominee in 2003 and lost in the general election. He ran again as an independent last year and lost amid questions about other campaign finance irregularities.

The Charlottesville native says he’s through with the city.

“I should also inform you that I have no intention of moving back to Charlottesville nor seeking public office there,” says Jackson, who now lives near Farmville. “It has no longer become the home I knew and loved. Now it is just a hate-filled city focusing on things and not people who are the citizens.”

The city used to be a community not divided by race, color, religion or gender, he says. “That city no longer exists for me.”

Clarifications March 26: Jackson was identified as a conservative in the original story, but says he’s a fiscal conservative, and is not conservative on social issues.

Jackson says the campaign report he filed that listed contributor “Mary, Mary” with occupation “horse” was corrected within 24 hours. However, “Mary, Mary” still appears on a state campaign finance report.