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Virginia Senate elections panel debates toughening rules on ‘sore losers’ [1]

['Graham Moomaw', 'More From Author', '- January']

Date: 2024-01-16  

A Virginia Senate committee voted Tuesday to advance one bill strengthening the state’s so-called sore loser law but rejected another as lawmakers debated how to handle candidates who refuse to accept defeat in party primaries.

In last year’s contentious General Assembly elections, candidates who ran in both Republican and Democratic primaries threatened or announced write-in campaigns instead of backing a party rival who beat them.

And in one unusual episode in a local contest, a candidate for the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors ran as a Republican for most of the 45-day early voting window only to drop out of the primary at the last second and file to run as an independent.

Under the state’s current sore loser law, anyone who runs in a party primary can’t have their name printed on the general-election ballot. They can, however, encourage supporters to write in their name, even though write-in campaigns are almost never successful.

Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Spotsylvania, filed a bill to extend the sore loser law to write-in campaigns, arguing losing candidates are using the write-in process to evade the rule.

“All I’m trying to do is keep the sore losers out of the game,” Reeves said.

Democrats on the panel were wary of the idea, noting that even if a defeated candidate did nothing to invite a write-in campaign, the proposed law would go too far by completely eliminating voters’ ability to choose that candidate.

“That election would then be void under your law,” Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico.

The committee rejected the proposal on an 8-6 party-line vote. But another Republican-sponsored bill on a similar topic got a friendlier reception.

In response to the ballot switcheroo in Roanoke County, Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke, filed a bill clarifying how the sore loser law aligns with the 45-day early voting period lawmakers approved in 2020. That situation revealed that, technically, a candidate isn’t considered “defeated” in a primary if they formally withdraw before Election Day but weeks after early voting began.

Suetterlein told the committee that legal revelation opened the door to underhanded political tactics, specifically mentioning talk he had heard about Republicans encouraging Democrats at risk of losing primaries to drop out and run as independents, potentially splitting the Democratic vote.

“That ended up not happening. But I think that this current interpretation really invites that to happen all the time,” Suetterlein said. “It was an issue for my community. I think it’s going to become an issue for a lot of our communities.”

Suetterlein’s bill, which spells out that any failed candidate who appeared on a primary ballot cannot also appear on the general-election ballot, passed on a bipartisan 10-4 vote, with a few Democrats in opposition.

The Democratic-led committee barely entertained several other Republican bills to scale back early voting, repeal same-day voter registration and reinstate Virginia’s former photo ID requirement for voting. In a statement released after the meeting, the Senate Democratic Caucus said its members “vehemently oppose and will relentlessly combat all legislative attempts to undermine or restrict voting access.”

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[1] Url: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2024/01/16/virginia-senate-elections-panel-debates-toughening-rules-on-sore-losers/

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