They know they can't win 'fair & square.' Cable ‘accidentally cut’ leaving Virginia online voter registration portal unworkable — just hours before deadline Civil rights organizations on Tuesday vowed to make sure Virginia residents are able to vote in the November elections after—for the second time in a recent presidential election year—the state’s online voter registration portal crashed. The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law expressed outrage over reports that a fiber optic cable was severed near the state capital of Richmond, cutting access to online voter registration via the website and in local registrars’ offices. “This error is particularly astounding given that this same problem occurred at virtually the same time in 2016. It is astonishing that Virginia has not learned from failures of the not-so-distant past.” —Kristen Clarke, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law “Election officials in Virginia have again failed the public,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee. “The state’s online voter registration portal has crashed on the eve of the registration deadline, leaving thousands of eligible people in the dark.”