Lawsuit seeks to kick Kanye West off the ballot in Virginia

In a suit filed Tuesday in Richmond Circuit Court, Matthan Wilson and Bryan Wright, both Suffolk residents, said signature-gatherers for West misled them into pledging to serve as electors for the rapper-entrepreneur.

While West's independent bid is seen as a long shot, some Democrats fear he could become a spoiler candidate in swing states, possibly benefiting President Donald Trump's re-election effort by drawing Black votes away from Democrat Joe Biden. West has been an outspoken Trump supporter and Republican operatives have assisted his efforts in at least five states.

Wilson and Wright are represented by Marc E. Elias and other attorneys at the nationally prominent Democratic firm Perkins Coie.

The suit names state elections officials as defendants, saying they should not have certified West for the ballot last week. Robert H. Brink, chairman of the elections board, said he could not comment on pending litigation, as did Andrea Gaines, spokeswoman for the state Department of Elections.

Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, filed a motion for an emergency hearing, scheduled for Thursday afternoon, and a brief that highlights "concerning deficiencies" in all 13 elector oaths.

West's campaign, which has faced accusations of deceptive tactics in other states, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has been removed from the ballot in multiple states because of deficient paperwork.

"Defendants have a legal duty to ensure that only the names of the candidates who meet the requirements of Virginia law are placed on the ballots in the Commonwealth of Virginia," the suit says.

The suit asks the court to intervene immediately, noting that the state would typically start printing ballots this week and that it must mail absentee ballots by Sept. 19.

Virginia's Board of Elections found last week that West had met the requirement for 5,000 petition signatures - at least 200 of them from each congressional district - and for 13 electors who pledged to support him.

The suit asserts that at least three of the elector oaths were obtained under false pretenses. It says another eight were invalid because of alleged irregularities related to how the oaths were notarized.

In an interview with The Washington Post last week, Wilson said he was out for a bike ride last month when he was approached by three people who asked if he would like to serve in a statewide pool of electors.

He said he found out that he was named as one of West's pledged electors from a reporter, about 10 days after the encounter with the signature-gatherers.

After The Post published voters' accounts of deceptive signature-gathering on Saturday, other Virginia residents got in touch with the newspaper to share similar stories.

Fairfax County resident David Pincus said he was heading into the Giant Food at University Mall - just south of George Mason University - a couple of weeks ago when he encountered a couple of men with clipboards. One of them approached him and said they were collecting signatures to ensure that West did not get on the ballot in Virginia. Were the rapper on the ballot, the petition circulator said, he would draw votes from other, more serious candidates.

Pincus said he would be interested in signing to keep West off the ballot. However, when he looked at the petition something didn't seem right.

"This certainly sounds like it's a petition for Kanye," Pincus recalled saying.

The signature collector would not answer his questions and Pincus chose not to sign. Upon arriving home, he said, he looked up the format for the petitions presidential candidates must use to qualify for the ballot. It was identical to what he had seen outside the Giant.

"At that point I am hopping mad," Pincus said. "They're fraudulently trying to get people to sign something under false pretenses. It's maddening. It's infuriating, actually. You just want elections to be fair."

Pincus emailed state elections officials on Aug. 19 to report his experience. To date, he said, he has not heard back. Gaines did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pincus's account, which is not part of the lawsuit.