Part of the reason committed citizens have to work so hard to defeat the three fall referendums with a NO vote is Virginia GOP cowardice. The Republican Party of Virginia too often resembles the Washington Generals – the team hired to lose every game to the Harlem Globetrotters.
In 2020, Virginia’s Democratic legislature separated ballots from persons by greatly expanding mailed voting. Joe Biden was credited with carrying Virginia by roughly 450,000 votes and ten points, the largest Democratic presidential margin in the Commonwealth since 1964.
In 2021, Terry McAuliffe apparently believed his campaign did not need a serious mailed-ballot effort against the relatively unknown Glenn Youngkin. Mailed ballots represented only a small share of the total vote. McAuliffe carried the combined early and mailed vote, but Youngkin won strongly enough on Election Day to escape with a two-point victory.
Virginia Democrats learned the lesson. They vowed never again to neglect mailed ballots.
Republicans apparently did not learn anything.
Democrats won control of the House of Delegates in 2023. In 2024, Donald Trump won Virginia’s Election Day presidential vote 53 to 47, while Kamala Harris won the early vote 55 to 45. The mailed vote then broke approximately 80 to 18 for Harris and helped produce her statewide margin.
In 2025, mailed ballots became an even larger share of the vote. Democrats eliminated thirteen Republican delegates, built a 63-37 House majority, and carried the statewide ticket by a wide margin. Once again, Republicans performed far better among people who appeared in person than among ballots returned through the mail.
Then came the April 2026 legislative referendum. The NO side reportedly won the Election Day vote by nine points and narrowly lost the early vote. Yet the mailed ballots broke approximately 72 to 25 for YES and were enough to reverse the Election Day result.
At some point, this stops being bad luck and becomes institutional incompetence.
New RPV Chairman Jeff Ryer reportedly told a Mason District Republican breakfast on June 13 that he would not challenge mailed ballots in future elections. If that account is accurate, it is an astonishing surrender. A political party does not protect election integrity by announcing in advance that an entire category of ballots will receive no serious scrutiny.
Why would party leaders refuse to challenge questionable mailed ballots?
Because doing it correctly requires money, data, lawyers, investigators, and hard work. It may require comparing voter rolls with property-tax records and other address data to determine whether ballots are being cast from nonresidential addresses. It may cost at least $500,000 to build a serious statewide operation.
That is money the consultant class would rather spend on consultants.
Too many Republican operatives appear willing to collect their fees, buy television ads, issue press releases, and explain after Election Day why no one could have predicted the result. They can tolerate losing candidates as long as the campaign checks clear. Meanwhile, volunteers, donors, and voters are expected to work harder every cycle to overcome failures that party professionals refuse to address.
Separating a ballot from a human being creates an obvious incentive for fraud, coercion, trafficking, mishandling, and votes cast from improper addresses. That does not mean every mailed ballot is fraudulent. It means mailed voting requires more verification, not less.
Republicans should build a lawful mailed-ballot program of their own while aggressively policing the system. They should identify supporters, help legitimate voters comply with the law, examine questionable addresses, train observers, preserve evidence, and prepare legal challenges before ballots are counted. Refusing to compete is foolish. Refusing to verify is worse.
We cannot allow the Washington Generals mentality to demoralize us. If the Republican establishment will not build the operation necessary to protect these referendums, committed citizens must do it ourselves.
The stakes are too high to leave Life, Marriage, and the future of Virginia’s Constitution in the hands of consultants who have grown comfortable losing.
We must organize. We must fund the work. We must watch every lawful ballot. We must turn out in person, vote early where necessary, and make the NO margin too large to erase.
Virginia cannot afford another professionally managed defeat.
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