Politico: “The first statewide Republican nominating contest since former President Donald Trump left office has added a new issue to the top tier of traditional GOP campaign messages: ‘election integrity.’ All four of the leading Republican candidates for this weekend’s ‘unassembled convention,’ where Republican delegates will vote for their nominee at 39 sites around the state, are talking about election and voting rules on the trail and in ads, with some putting forth detailed plans for how they would change Virginia’s election rules. The proposals are an unmistakable response to Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, which quickly became a cause on the right. ‘Election integrity’ is far from the only thing Republicans are discussing on the trail, with guns, abortion and pandemic policies all playing key roles, too. But the renewed focus on voting laws by four candidates trying to appeal to convention delegates underscores how much this issue is on the minds of Republican voters – and that Republicans who win state office in Virginia and elsewhere are poised to count changing voting laws among their top priorities.”

“‘Election integrity has been a top message that people are concerned about, given some of the allegations that came out of last year’s election,’ said Geary Higgins, the chair of the 10th congressional district Republican committee who has remained neutral in the primary. ‘It’s broader election integrity, but also concern about integrity in this process as well. So it is kind of a two-prong thing.’ Meanwhile, the Republican nominating process itself has been rife with fighting over how to choose the party’s standard-bearer, from the conflict over whether to have a state-run primary or a party-run convention to questions about how the ballots are ultimately counted.”