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2023 SESSION

23106670D
HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 349
Offered February 19, 2023
Commending Robin Randolph Lind.
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Patron-- Ware
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WHEREAS, though Plato was not alone among the ancients in believing that democracy was the final phase in the descent of political disorder into tyranny; and

WHEREAS, though Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, contemplated with “a kind of religious dread” the effects he foresaw for the original American ideal of liberty of the seemingly irresistible forces of the democratic revolution of the 18th and early 19th centuries; and

WHEREAS, nevertheless, there are countless men and women of goodwill who devote their energies to expanding the franchise by which democratic numbers continue to reshape the forms bequeathed by the founders alike of the American republic and the Commonwealth of Virginia; and

WHEREAS, for 20 years, Robin Randolph Lind has been such a man of goodwill, serving variously as secretary, vice chairman, and chairman of the Electoral Board of Goochland County; and

WHEREAS, the devotion to democratic principles and the integrity of elections that has characterized the public service of Robin Randolph Lind has become well-known throughout the Commonwealth through his service, too, as president of the Virginia Electoral Board; and

WHEREAS, Robin Randolph Lind is a born Democrat, though his kinsman of the 19th century, the redoubtable John Randolph of Roanoke, was a sworn opponent of what he denounced as “King Numbers”; and

WHEREAS, Robin Randolph Lind, son of a courageous British naval officer, has, in all of his professional and civic endeavors, drawn upon the loving and collaborative support of his wife, Kitty, daughter of the late Honorable Murat Willis Williams, a longtime member of the United States Foreign Service and the American Ambassador to El Salvador during the Kennedy Administration; and

WHEREAS, during his long tenure on the Electoral Board of Goochland County, Robin Randolph Lind was, in his own words, wholly engaged “…on 34 separate Election Day cycles, conducting 186 individual elections, with separate certifications for every contest,” and he noted that his signature on the requisite official documents “has been my sworn promise to go to prison if the results were not accurate, and the election was not free, fair, and transparent. I have been true to my oath”; and

WHEREAS, in concluding his career on the Electoral Board, Robin Randolph Lind has been able to declare that “democracy is strong and flourishing in Goochland County,” where many hands have established the integrity of the electoral process, resulting in “the highest percentage turnout of voters all across the Commonwealth, year after year”; and

WHEREAS, Robin Randolph Lind is a learnèd and inimitable man given to apposite quotations from ancient scribes, and gifted with honorable centricities and delightful eccentricities, evidenced in the brilliant journalism of his early years and enriched by his regular retreats into the Tesseract; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, That Robin Randolph Lind hereby be commended for his long and honorable service as an officer of the Goochland and Virginia electoral boards; and, be it

RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to Robin Randolph Lind in recognition of—in the words of the elected officials of his community—his “invaluable service to the citizens of Goochland County.”