1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

Dear Governor Spanberger and Members of the Virginia Delegation, I am writing to you as a Virginia mother, a lifelong voter, and a constituent who is watching our democracy being dismantled in real time. This morning, a federal whistleblower confirmed that the U.S. Postal Service secretly built an entirely new ballot system — called the Federal Ballot Mail Portal — while courts were actively blocking it. USPS staff described the rushed, untested system internally as a “sh*t show.” If a single ballot envelope scan does not match the portal’s data, USPS will reject the entire batch. Potentially millions of Americans may not receive their mail ballots. North Carolina begins sending ballots this week. Virginia voters are next. This is not an abstract threat. It is happening to my family right now. My daughter just started college in Vermont. She is a Virginia voter and a first-time voter who cannot come home on November 3rd. She did everything right — she registered, she planned ahead, she is ready to vote for the very first time. This administration is secretly building a system designed to make sure her ballot never arrives. Virginia is one of the 23 states named in the ongoing legal battle over this executive order. Your constituents — college students, military families, elderly voters, disabled Virginians, rural communities — are depending on you to fight for their right to vote. We are asking you to join every available legal challenge to protect Virginia’s mail ballot process, speak publicly and clearly to Virginia voters about the status of their absentee ballots, demand that Virginia election officials prepare contingency plans if the Federal Ballot Mail Portal causes systemic failures, and tell every first-time voter in this commonwealth that Virginia will not allow a secret, untested federal system to silence their voice. My daughter will vote. I need to know you are fighting to make sure it counts. Respectfully — and with fierce determination,