Fairfax County Democratic Delegate Dan Helmer deployed to the Middle East in the wake of 9/11. He lost friends in that “war of choice,” and he’s afraid it might be happening again.
“My hearts and prayers are with the Iranian people who have suffered so much, been dealt a raw hand, as well as with American service members today who deserve a better president than the one we have,” Helmer told Radio IQ.
Right now, Virginia servicemembers are deployed in the Middle East, exposed to danger in a war Donald Trump started without authorization from Congress.
Back home, MAGA Republicans in Lynchburg are trying to use a “firehouse primary” to lock those same servicemembers out of their own party’s elections. They can’t vote absentee. They can’t participate at all.
Dan Helmer wrote a law to stop exactly this. In 2021, he authored and passed legislation, now known as “Helmer’s law,” requiring every party nomination process in Virginia to include absentee protections for deployed troops, students, disabled voters, and others who can’t show up in person. Even the previous Republican Attorney General agreed: Firehouse primaries that exclude these voters violate the law.
Now Lynchburg Republicans are trying again. And Dan is fighting back by calling on Attorney General Jay Jones to intervene and enforce the law he wrote.
Dan is a West Point graduate who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He knows what it means to serve overseas while decisions about your future get made without you.
He’ll never let that happen on his watch. You send people to war, you don’t get to take away their vote.