Roughly a month ago, The New York Times dropped a damning story about the current state of the Democrat Party. The main takeaway of the extensive report was that America’s leftist political entity is facing a massive voter registration crisis.
Buried within the article, however, was a tacit admission that, “For years, the left has relied on a sprawling network of nonprofits — which solicit donations from people whose identities they need not disclose — to register Black, Latino and younger voters.” Although these groups claim to be “nonpartisan,” the outlet noted, “the underlying assumption has been that most new voters registering would vote Democratic.”
While the Times authors went on to explain how President Donald Trump “upended” this strategy by making inroads with “working-class nonwhite voters,” it seems that leftists aren’t quite ready to abandon their use of nonprofit organizations to register and turn out demographics they believe will propel their party to victory.
New records obtained by The Federalist show how the left-wing Voter Participation Center (VPC) and Center for Voter Information (CVI) have been replicating their years-long strategy of targeting likely-Democrat voters ahead of Virginia’s fall elections. Such revelations are especially notable given that the early voting in the commonwealth began on Sept. 19.
Voter Registration Efforts
Much like other self-professed “nonpartisan” voter registration groups, VPC is actually “a left-of-center” group that “runs a direct-mail program [targeting] ‘unmarried women, minorities and millennials’ with voter registration mailings and phone calls” alongside its sister group CVI, according to InfluenceWatch. Both groups are currently run by CEO and known Democrat operative Tom Lopach.
As it relates to Virginia’s elections, the communication records obtained by The Federalist show that VPC Executive Vice President Lionel Dripps emailed Department of Elections (ELECT) Commissioner Susan Beals and other ELECT officials on June 2, 2025, in which he notified the agency that VPC-CVI are “preparing a voter registration mailing to arrive in homes in late August, and plan to upload materials to [its] printer in mid-June.” Dripps expressed understanding that the commonwealth may have “modified” its state voter registration form “to reflect new voter registration deadlines,” and requested that a draft or finalized version of the new form be provided to VPC-CVI “within the next two weeks.”
Dripps sent a follow-up email to Beals and Co. on June 9, estimating that VPC-CVI’s registration mailers would be arriving at prospective voters’ homes “between August 28 and September 2.” He specified that it would be VPC-CVI’s “only voter registration form mailing [in the state] this year, and we would like to notify you of the mailing and also ensure that we are using correct forms and instructions.”
“Attached are the draft form and instructions that will be included in the mailing. Could your office please review the form/instructions for accuracy? We would greatly appreciate your feedback on these materials by Monday, June 23,” Dripps wrote. “We send this mail to people who are turning 18 and newly eligible to register to vote, people who have moved and according to our records need to update their registration, and addresses where our records show unregistered voters likely live.”
Draft copies of the VPC-CVI registration mailers obtained by The Federalist mirror those disbursed by the groups in other states in previous elections. The forms notably come with a QR code, which gives users the option to register at an online portal operated by VPC and Rock the Vote (RTV), a left-wing get-out-the-vote organization targeted towards young people.
As The Federalist previously reported, the VPC-RTV registration portal includes a privacy policy stating that RTV “may share an individual’s ‘personal information’ with ‘partners and organizations with principles and missions that overlap with those of RTV,’ ‘affiliates and companies with whom [RTV] share[s] common ownership,’ and other listed third parties.” The implication is that using such a method to register to vote would grant VPC, RTV, and potentially other left-wing groups access to critical data that can help boost their GOTV efforts.
In his June 9 follow-up email, Dripps additionally probed ELECT on if it or any Virginia counties would be distributing “voter registration applications or communications about voter registration” to eligible voters this year, saying, “It would be helpful to understand the timing of any related mailings being sent by your offices to potential voters.” He further revealed that VPC-CVI would be sending “a vote by mail recruitment mailing for registered voters only, and will reach out to [ELECT] in the coming weeks to share those materials as well.”
ELECT External Affairs Manager Andrea Gaines responded to Dripps in a June 20 email, in which she provided him with a copy of the commonwealth’s new state voter registration form publicly released on July 1. Gaines noted “the voter registration deadline will be moved from 22 days before the election to 11 days before the election.”
Dripps replied on June 23, notifying Gaines that his team had “updated [their] materials to reflect these changes” and that they “will follow up later this summer, once the mail is printed, with final counts by county of the pieces we are mailing.”
Additional emails obtained by The Federalist include a table breaking down how many VPC-CVI registration mailers would be sent to each Virginia locality. According to the data, many of these mailings are directed at high-population areas like Alexandria and Fairfax — which also happen to be Democrat strongholds.
Mail-In Voting and Voter Confusion
As telegraphed by Dripps, that wasn’t the last time ELECT officials would hear from VPC-CVI about their election shenanigans.
Three days after Dripps’ June 23 email to Gaines, the VPC executive vice president reached out to Beals and ELECT officials to discuss VPC-CVI’s “vote-by-mail outreach mailing in Virginia,” which he noted “are sent to registered voters, focusing on people most likely to vote by mail if they receive an application, and include an application form, instructions, and pre-addressed envelope.”
“The vote-by-mail applications will be pre-filled with name and address and will land in homes around September 12,” Dripps wrote. “We are reaching out to notify you of the mailing, and to ensure the forms and instructions we will utilize are accurate and up-to-date.”
Gaines confirmed in a July 1 response email that the information included in VPC-CVI’s vote-by-mail outreach mailings is accurate. What’s particularly notable about the email, however, is the part in which Gaines asked that the groups “reconsider pre-filling the attached application” because some of their “past efforts to disseminate voter information in this manner have caused a great deal of confusion among voters.”
“In the past, after some voters received your pre-filled applications, our state office (and according to news reports, other state offices) received dozens of complaints from irate voters who believed that their privacy — and consequently their votes — had been compromised. As we are certain you would agree, we want to ensure that Virginians are confident that their voter information is secure,” Gaines wrote.
In recent years, several (red and blue) state officials have expressed frustrations with VPC-CVI’s election mailer antics. Last year, for example, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown issued a cease-and-desist order to the organizations for sending letters to voters that threatened to reveal whether those registered to vote cast a ballot in the 2024 election.
“Let me be clear: these unnerving letters are unacceptable, and Maryland voters should know that their decision to vote this Election Day is entirely theirs to make,” Brown said.
[READ: Leftist Group Threatens Michigan Voters: ‘We Will Be Reviewing’ Your Voting Record]
In her July 1 response to Dripps, Gaines asked that “contact information for the representatives from [VPC-CVI] who will be assigned to answer any questions or comments we receive about the mailing” be sent to the state agency “in the event that [their] mailings are distributed as planned.” She additionally requested VPC-CVI “provide [ELECT] with a contact name, phone number, email and mailing address for any complaints received.”
For more election news and updates, visit electionbriefing.com.