As Republicans across the country insist more laws are needed to protect election integrity, Virginia Republicans have found themselves in a bit of a voter ID quagmire.
At issue is a decision to quietly allow voters to participate in their complicated primary process even if they left blank parts of the application, including required fields that asked for their state-issued voter ID number and a signature, according to documents and an audio recording of a call obtained exclusively by NBC News.
Republicans in the state say the nominating contest has been a logistical nightmare.
And it comes as the Republican Party has largely embraced President Donald Trump’s baseless rallying cry that rampant fraud cost him the election. He has insisted that every signature on a mailed ballot in Georgia be verified, for instance.
Now, Virginia Republicans are facing questions from their own party about their enforcement of voter security measures — fueled by their decision to run their convention themselves, which required them to design their own applications and approval systems.
“It’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ in the Virginia GOP right now,” said former Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman, who lost a state Republican convention last year that he and allies felt was rigged against him after he came under criticism because he officiated a same-sex wedding. “It’s all very ironic.”