election

In a year when Virginia voters will choose their next governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and all 100 members of the House of Delegates, a little-noticed legislative panel is asking a potentially seismic question: Should the state stop voting every year?

The Joint Subcommittee to Study the Consolidation and Scheduling of General Elections met for the first time last week to begin exploring whether Virginia — one of just a handful of states with statewide elections in odd-numbered years — should sync up with the federal calendar and move all general elections to even-numbered years.

In a high-stakes voting rights battle with roots in the Reconstruction era, civil rights groups on Friday filed two new motions in a federal lawsuit that could restore voting rights to thousands of Virginians with felony convictions.

Announced Monday, the filings by the ACLU of Virginia, Protect Democracy and the law firm WilmerHale seek summary judgment in the case and class-action status on behalf of the more than 300,000 Virginians who they say remain disenfranchised under a state constitutional provision. The plaintiffs argue Virginia is violating a 150-year-old federal law — the Virginia Readmission Act of 1870 — which governed the state’s return to the Union after the Civil War.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Democrats are set on Tuesday to pick their nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general, rounding out the statewide ticket and setting the stage for a bellwether election later this year.

Most of the nominees slated to be at the top of the November ticket have already been picked, and Republicans aren’t even having a statewide primary.