'Non-Partisan' Voter Participation Center Defended by Array of Left Wing Groups and Unions

After more than 750 voter complaints and national attention brought on by the Romney campaign’s letter to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia State Board of Elections is considering whether to request a full investigation into the Voter Participation Center. Though the group describes itself as “non-partisan,” a cadre of what might be called the usual suspects has stepped up in the group’s defense. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch…

…nine primarily left-leaning groups are asking the State Board of Elections to reject the Romney camp’s request to toss out forms that the group had filled in, and review all applications received in recent months.

“Should the State Board of Elections acquiesce to the Romney campaign’s attempt to intervene in lawful voter registration efforts, it would be in violation of its legal obligation to timely process voter registration applications and would cast a pall of confusion over new voters in Virginia,” says the letter.

The letter is signed by ProgressVA, SEIU Local 512, Virginia Organizing, NARAL Pro-Choice VA, the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, The Martin Luther King Jr. Living History and Public Policy Center, Virginia New Majority, the Voice of Vietnamese Americans, and Tenants and Workers United.

The groups are blowing hot air. The VPC’s forms have caused confusion in several states and even confounded a member of the State Elections Board when she received one in the mail. As for legality, a VPC form is known to have led directly to voter fraud in 2008. The VPC’s tactic of pre-populating voter information on its forms was a violation of Virginia state code and may violate laws in some of the other 27 states the group admits operating in.

The VPC’s “non-partisan” status turns out to be little more than a joke: Everyone associated with the group is a known Democrat. Democrats fund it, Democrats sit on its board, and a Democrat runs it directly. That Democrat, Page S. Gardner, is also making a handsome living off her voter registration work. The Disrupt the Narrative blog unearthed records showing that Gardner is pulling down $190,000 per year to send the VPC’s shady voter registration forms to the dead, to dogs and cats, to dead dogs, to non-citizens and children.

Page Gardner, it turns out, has been playing her “non-partisan” schtick for years.