Staff Reports
Something strange rolled in the mail in Virginia this week: an official voting-rights restoration certificate addressed to “Biscuit Rigsby” — a beagle-hound mix the owner says has been dead for years. Delegate Tom Garrett released the certificate and demanded an audit and a criminal probe. If you’re not worried about voter-rolls and bureaucratic sloppiness yet, you should be.
What actually happened
Delegate Tom Garrett made public a restoration certificate that appears to bear Governor Abigail Spanberger’s signature and the Lesser Seal of the Commonwealth. The note was mailed in the name “Biscuit Rigsby.” The dog’s owner confirmed the certificate was real and said Biscuit never was convicted of a felony and has been dead for several years. The governor’s office pushed back, saying it did not restore a dog’s rights and claiming the record is tied to a person with a date of birth and Social Security number. The Secretary of the Commonwealth, Candi Mundon King, handles these restorations.
Why this matters to Virginians
This is not just a funny mailbox story. The Spanberger administration has been restoring tens of thousands of voting and jury‑service rights as part of a big push. When certificates start turning up with names that belong to the deceased — or to animals — it chips away at voter confidence. A restoration certificate makes someone eligible to register. It is not the same as a voter registration record, but sloppy record‑keeping anywhere in the process invites bigger trouble down the line.
Questions the administration must answer
Was this a mail‑merge error, a data match gone wrong, or a deeper database mess? Did automated scripts insert the wrong name? Why would a person’s record show up as “Biscuit Rigsby” unless someone’s files were corrupted or mishandled? The governor’s office cites privacy rules, but that cannot be a cover for secrecy. The Secretary’s office should publish a clear forensic explanation, preserve the underlying data, and allow an independent rights‑restoration audit. The Attorney General, Jay Jones, should at least review whether criminal laws were broken.
Bottom line: transparency or trickle of distrust
Call this what you will — a clerical gaffe, a database hiccup, or a sign of a larger problem — Virginians deserve answers, fast. Restoring rights is the right thing when it’s done right. Doing it with errors in the names and files is the wrong thing, and it will stoke distrust ahead of an important ballot fight on automatic restoration. If Biscuit somehow cast a ballot, I’ll happily eat my hat. Until then, demand the audit, preserve the records, and don’t let the bureaucracy bury the explanation under a pile of excuses.
