Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger's administration is facing mounting questions after Fox News Politics reported that her office sent a voting rights citation addressed to a recipient listed only as "Betty No Last Name," the latest anomaly in a rights restoration push already under scrutiny over a deceased felon who reportedly received voting paperwork.
The revelation, first reported by Fox News Politics, adds a second apparent data failure to a program that Spanberger's office has presented as a streamlined path back to the ballot for former offenders. A voting rights citation is the document Virginia sends to individuals whose civil rights have been restored, informing them they are eligible to register and vote. Sending one to a person with no recorded surname — and, in the earlier case, to someone who is dead — raises immediate questions about how the state verifies the identities of the people it is re-enfranchising.
What We Know
According to Fox News Politics, the citation to "Betty No Last Name" originated from Spanberger's office as part of the restoration process. The outlet also reported that a felon who had died received similar voting rights paperwork, fueling fraud concerns among critics of the governor's approach.
It is not yet known how many citations have gone out with incomplete or fabricated identities, whether any of those recipients actually registered to vote, or whether any ballots were cast under the questionable names. Spanberger's office has not publicly explained how a record with no last name cleared whatever verification steps the restoration process requires. Fox News Politics did not report the total number of questionable citations, and Next News Network has not independently reviewed the state's restoration list.
The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Politics, according to the outlet's reporting. A request for comment from Next News Network was not immediately answered.
Why It Matters
Virginia is one of a handful of states where the governor holds broad discretion over the restoration of civil rights, including the right to vote, for people convicted of felonies. Every name that moves through that process is supposed to correspond to a real, living person whose sentence and eligibility have been checked. A citation to "Betty No Last Name" suggests either a data-entry breakdown or a verification step that did not do its job — and either explanation is a problem for a program that touches the integrity of the voter rolls.
The dead-felon case sharpens the point. If a deceased person can receive restoration paperwork, the state's list is not reliably tied to living registrants. Critics of Spanberger's restoration push have argued that the process moves faster than the checks behind it; the two cases reported by Fox News Politics give those critics concrete examples to point to.
Republicans in the General Assembly are likely to demand records: how the "Betty No Last Name" record was created, who approved it, and how many other entries in the restoration queue share the same defects. Election officials in Virginia's 133 localities, meanwhile, are the ones who would process any registrations that follow from these citations, and they have no independent way to know a state-issued restoration letter was based on a phantom record.
Our Take
This is what happens when a governor treats the restoration of voting rights as a volume business. Spanberger's office is mailing out citations to people it apparently cannot fully identify — a woman with no surname, a man who is no longer alive — and expecting Virginians to believe the rest of the list is clean. Patriots should ask a simple question: if the state cannot tell the difference between a living eligible voter and a placeholder record, what else is it getting wrong?
The dead felon and "Betty No Last Name" are not paperwork glitches. They are evidence that identity verification in this program is either broken or being treated as optional. Every legitimate former offender who deserves a second chance at the ballot has an interest in a process that proves who it is restoring. Spanberger owes Virginians a full accounting — the records, the checks, and the names — before another citation goes out the door.
Americans deserve voter rolls they can trust. If the governor's office won't explain how "Betty No Last Name" ended up with a voting rights citation, the General Assembly should subpoena the answer.
