The NAACP Virginia State Conference sued Virginia election officials over rejecting college students’ voter registration forms that do not include the student’s dormitory name, room number, or campus mailing address.
The group filed the lawsuit late last week but announced it Monday ahead of Election Day in the Old Dominion, arguing the requirement for college students to provide additional information to verify their campus addresses is a violation of the students’ First and 14th Amendment rights.
“Defendants’ unlawful on-campus student voter registration rejections impose discriminatory, arbitrary, and unjustified burdens on students living on-campus and only students living on-campus. College students are denied access to the voter rolls and many are sent confusing, sometimes threatening notices indicating, in some instances, that they are not eligible to vote,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also claims the state’s guidance on voter registration does not explicitly require the information local election offices have requested from students. The state vote registration website, however, notes that local voter registration officials may contact students for more information if they are unable to determine their physical residency.
The group claims voters at Norfolk State University, Virginia State University, George Mason University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, University of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University are among those affected by the voter registration requirements.
“This is a clear attempt to rob students of the right to vote in a state where they study and potentially live once they graduate,” Senior Associate General Counsel at NAACP Anthony Ashton said in a statement.
As of midday Tuesday, the federal court has not issued any injunction or ruling on the lawsuit. Polls in Virginia are slated to close at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The key statewide races in Virginia include the governor’s race between Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and former Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the lieutenant governor’s race between Republican John Reid and Democratic state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, and the attorney general’s race between incumbent Republican Jason Miyares and former Democratic state delegate Jay Jones.
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The attorney general’s race is widely expected to be the closest, with Miyares running for a second term against Jones. The Democratic candidate has been embroiled in a scandal after leaked text messages showed him suggesting former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican, should receive “two bullets to the head.”
While Republicans won all three statewide races in 2021, the Old Dominion tends to lean Democratic, with the commonwealth voting for former Vice President Kamala Harris over President Donald Trump by more than five points in the 2024 presidential election.