Virginia’s attorney general announced on Friday the creation of a new 20-person unit that will ensure “legality and purity in elections”—even though the state has seen no major cases of voter fraud as of late. Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office said the team will investigate and prosecute potential violations of election law, and be a legal resource for state and local elections. “I pledged during the 2021 campaign to work to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections,” Miyares said in a news release. “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.” At the same time, Republicans in Virginia and across the country have pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen from former President Donald Trump. Some Democrats have slammed Miyares’ announcement, saying the election unit will pursue frivolous voter fraud claims to appease the conservative base there. “With the creation of this unit, Attorney General Miyares has fully embraced Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ and the far-right fringes of the Republican party,” Democratic Party of Virginia spokesman Gianni Snidle told the Virginia Mercury. Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, joked on Twitter that Miyares would soon push a “Ghost Busting Unit that will hunt for ghosts and ghouls across the Commonwealth.” “The Attorney General has said countless times that Joe Biden won the 2020 election,” Miyares’ spokeswoman, Victoria LaCivita, said Friday.
