ATTENTION!! By now you may have heard that the Governor moved the '20 local elections from May 5th to May 19th and that has stirred some questions. I’ll try to answer them and then give you a call to action. Here goes:

(no clue how many tweets, but it's a thread)

On Wednesday, at Reconvened Session, the House of Delegates ACCEPTED the recommendation to HB29 that moved the elections to November. The Senate of Virginia REJECTED it, so it died. And as of 1:59pm today, the election stood on May 5th.

Legally, Governor only has the authority to move an election by 14 days. (That's why he needed the General Assembly to do our job, but nope, that didn't work...)
So today, he used his power to move the election 14 days to May 19th at his 2pm press conference on #COVID19 updates.

But did you know the same code section that limits Governor to 14 days grants local governing bodies authority to do more? They can petition the VA Supreme Court to push an election back up to 30 days. Read the code: https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title24.2/chapter6/section24.2-603.1/

5. Include community orgs in doing the outreach work since they already have networks to get the word out as well. We don't have time to reinvent the wheel!

Did I miss anything? I mean none of this is ideal, but wanted to see if we could make the best of a bad situation

Agree? Contact Mayor/City Council/Boards for any locality having a local election this Spring! Emails, calls, tweets, FB, all hands on deck! Don’t assume they know how you feel. Make it known if you want the election after May 19th for the health and safety of our Commonwealth!

Whew! It's been a minute since I have written a four-page letter but I just sent one to @NNMayorPriceDDS & @DonnieTuck and #NewportNews #Hampton city councils, managers, attorneys, and registrars on this matter.

(Yes, he's my dad, but I still sent him a letter!)

The letter requests five things:
1. Petition the court to move the election to June 2nd (within the 30 days but still on a Tuesday which is our norm)

2. Implement an expeditious proactive education outreach campaign on the use of absentee ballots

If you have any questions or need any help, please let me know. Hopefully, these local governing bodies will take this action at their very next meetings next week if not before!

#BeTheChangeDoTheWork

3. Get PPE and cleaning supplies for elections workers because polls will still be open and proivde masks and hand sanitizer for voters coming in-person because we will not be in the clear from #COVID19 by then but this is the latest timeframe we can use now.

Answer to Question: neither move to 5/19 or 6/2 would trigger needing to discard the current absentee ballots that have already been returned.

Also, either way, if you can and haven't REQUEST YOUR ABSENTEE BALLOT TODAY: http://bit.ly/YourVAVoteMatters
Use the citizen portal!