Repost from The Virginia Star.
Attorney General Jason Miyares has created a 20-member Election Integrity Unit within the Office of the Attorney General [OAG]; the unit will investigate and prosecute violations of election law, provide legal guidance, and work with law enforcement to protect election purity.
“I pledged during the 2021 campaign to work to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections. It should be easy to vote, and hard to cheat. The Election Integrity Unit will work to help to restore confidence in our democratic process in the Commonwealth,” Miyares said in a press release.
Miyares spokesperson Victoria LaCivita said the announcement is coming now because absentee voting starts in two weeks. No additional budget or funds are needed because the employees who make up the new unit are already employed by the OAG, with only a few to be focused full-time on election matters.
LaCivita said Miyares does not think the 2020 election results were influenced by fraud.
“No. The Virginia Department of Elections and Office of the Attorney General have reviewed the 2020 election results, along with hundreds of documents of concerns from citizens and elected officials, and have not seen any evidence of widespread fraud that would change the results of Virginia’s 2020 election,” LaCivita said.
“I’m super excited,” said State Senator Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield).
In February, shortly after Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares took office, Chase met with representatives of the Office of the Attorney General and pushed for $70 million to be budgeted for an audit of the 2020 election. But the administration took little public action, and in March, Youngkin seemed to snub Chase by appointing former Chase staffer Susan Beals to head the Department of Elections without consulting Chase.
Chase said the creation of the Election Integrity Unit is one of the results of that February meeting.