The Voting Integrity Project, Inc.
PO Box 222034, Chantilly, Virginia 201530234
(703) 578-4343 phone * (703) 538-2999 fax




	Testimony 
	of Mr. Dave Juday
	before Virginia House of Delegates
	Privileges and Elections Subcommittee
	on Voter Registration by Party Identification
	Monday, January 20, 1997


Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to 
testify on the subject of election law reform.

My name is Dave Juday.  I am a member of the Citizens Advisory Board of the 
Virginia Voting Integrity Project, an authorized state project of the Voting 
Integrity Project, Inc.

The Voting Integrity Project, Inc. is a national, non-profit, non-partisan citizens 
coalition which educates the American public about election law and policy, 
investigates voting fraud, and promotes election law reform to protect the 
integrity of our most basic and precious right as Americans — our right to 
vote.

The Voting Integrity Project is comprised of people of all political persuasions 
and all walks of life.  Our common bond is our commitment to ensuring that 
elections are conducted in an environment of unquestioned integrity and that 
circumstances born of method and motive are not permitted to erode our 
Republic.

The members of the Voting Integrity Project — including those who consider 
themselves “independents” — believe that strong parties are foundational  to 


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our representative democracy, and that parties must be able to conduct fair 
nominations processes, free from interference from a competing political party.

Political parties are free associations of individuals bound together by 
common beliefs.  It is this commonality which focuses the energies and 
enthusiasms of its members, producing the contributions and volunteers 
essential to its vitality and existence.  A political party’s 

primary function is to elect candidates for public office who represent a 
party’s principles.  If Virginia’s election laws interfere with a party’s ability 
to nominate candidates of its own choosing, our entire system is threatened 
with breakdown.

Mr. Chairman, the Voting Integrity Project believes that current Virginia law 
denies political parties their right to determine who may participate in that 
party’s candidate selection process because a political party in this 
Commonwealth is currently without any control over who may participate in 
its nomination process.   We, therefore, encourage reform which would offer 
such control and which is utilized by most states in the Union — voter 
registration by party identification. 

The Voting Integrity Project is ready and able to provide assistance to the 
members of this Committee and the General Assembly as it considers such 
important election law reform.  If there are any questions, I would be happy to 
answer them.  Again, thank you.