Virginia Republican Party leaders denied a petition from rabbis within the party for Orthodox Jews to be able to vote absentee in the party’s nominating convention, scheduled for Saturday May 8, when the party will pick its nominee for governor and other statewide offices. The rabbis wrote that Orthodox Jews “do not drive, use electronic devices, employ handwriting instruments (e.g. pens, pencils)” on their Sabbath, which lasts from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. “As such, it would be impossible for Jews of faith to vote in your unassembled convention,” they said. The State Central Committee vote, which took place Thursday night, failed to reach the 75 percent threshold, with at least one party leader saying the proposal was made too late, coming in a month before the convention. Ken Reid, an Orthodox Jew who registered as a voting delegate at the convention, said, “It’s not anti-Semitism, it’s anti-realism. There’s a hardcore number of people who want to keep this a small tent… They say they want everybody to vote, but they don’t do anything to do it.”