Experts tell Virginia committee consolidating elections would shift campaign finance rules, add compliance costs

The Joint Subcommittee to Study the Consolidation and Scheduling of General Elections heard testimony that moving Virginia’s statewide and legislative elections to even years would not change only the calendar but would also change which laws govern campaign financing and how parties and candidates account for spending.

John Burcon, a partner at Elias Law Group and an Arlington resident who identified himself as an election lawyer, told the subcommittee that ‘‘if Virginia ends up making the move to hold their nonfederal elections in the same year as federal elections, it will mean that that financing piece does change and that federal law will end up playing a significant role in addition to state law.’’

That change matters, Burcon said, because federal law—principally rules implemented after the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly called McCain-Feingold) and enforced by the Federal Election Commission—defines categories of ‘‘federal election activity’’ that trigger federal limits and accounting requirements. He summarized four categories the federal rules treat as federal election activity: voter registration (within 120…