Yes, Virginia … There Is Another Election
How much early voting is too much?
By Bruce Potter
PUBLISHER INSIDE NOVA
This article was republished with permission from FXBG Advance’s news partner InsideNoVa.com. Sign up for InsideNoVa.com’s free email subscription today.
Our state’s famous marketing slogan is “Virginia is for lovers.”
But perhaps it should be “Virginia is for elections.”
As one of only two states that hold odd-year elections for statewide offices and members of the General Assembly, it seems in Virginia that we’re always voting on something.
And that has become more so the case with the 2020 expansion of early voting to 45 days. As a result, we run the risk of exhausting voters, voting officials and the candidates and campaigns themselves.
For example, look at the 11th Congressional District in Fairfax County. After Rep. Gerry Connolly passed away in May, a special election was held to replace him. But at the same time, the district’s voters were also participating in a Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.
So here’s a timeline:
Democratic primary for lieutenant governor: Early voting began May 2, with election day June 17.
Special election for 11th District seat: Early voting began July 25, with election day Sept. 9
Statewide elections: Early voting begins Sept. 19, with election day Nov. 4.
In other words, between May 2 and Nov. 4, someone somewhere in this district is voting 140 out of 187 days.
Virginia’s lengthy early voting period – one of the longest, if not the longest, in the country – was enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic. If you recall, vaccines weren’t available, schools were still closed and everyone was afraid of standing closer than 6 feet to anyone else. Extending voting hours so people didn’t have to wait in long lines in crowded polling places made sense.
But it doesn’t make sense any more.
This is not to discount the importance of allowing as many voters as possible to participate in the process. That absolutely should remain a goal. But, sadly, like everything else, this has become a partisan issue.
It shouldn’t be that way. Such a lengthy early voting period is costly, because election officials have to staff all those early-voting locations for additional days. Campaigns have to invest in mailers and advertisements to voters who may already have cast their ballots – and begin such efforts far earlier in the election season.
It’s exhausting, because campaigns and parties have to recruit volunteers to staff polling places and serve as poll-watchers for many more days.
And it’s potentially misleading, because a lot can happen in 45 days. Voters should have as much information as possible before deciding who their next leaders will be. In 2021, the second debate between Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe – generally seen as the turning point in that race – happened 11 days after early voting began. Youngkin wound up winning, but one wonders whether some early McAuliffe voters might have changed their minds had they seen that debate first.
We already have enough voting in Virginia. The pandemic is over. We don’t need 6½ weeks of early voting; two to three weeks should suffice. The concept is fine, but let’s make it manageable.
Bruce Potter is publisher of InsideNoVa. He can be reached at bpotter@insidenova.com.
Paragraph 3 and 4
Rest of text
Local Obituaries
To view local obituaries or to send a note to family and loved ones, please visit the link that follows.
Support Award-winning, Locally Focused Journalism
The FXBG Advance cuts through the talking points to deliver both incisive and informative news about the issues, people, and organizations that daily affect your life. And we do it in a multi-partisan format that has no equal in this region. Over the past year, our reporting was:
First to break the story of Stafford Board of Supervisors dismissing a citizen library board member for “misconduct,” without informing the citizen or explaining what the person allegedly did wrong.
First to explain falling water levels in the Rappahannock Canal.
First to detail controversial traffic numbers submitted by Stafford staff on the Buc-ee’s project
Our media group also offers the most-extensive election coverage in the region and regular columnists like:
And our newsroom is led by the most-experienced and most-awarded journalists in the region — Adele Uphaus (Managing Editor and multiple VPA award-winner) and Martin Davis (Editor-in-Chief, 2022 Opinion Writer of the Year in Virginia and more than 25 years reporting from around the country and the world).
For just $8 a month, you can help support top-flight journalism that puts people over policies.
Your contributions 100% support our journalists.
Help us as we continue to grow!
This article is published under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND. It can be distributed for noncommercial purposes and must include the following: “Published with permission by FXBG Advance.”
Interesting article, but I’m not at all convinced of his premise.
The argument seems to boil down to:
1) It’s costly because election officials have to staff the early-voting locations for longer: This is by far the most compelling of his arguments, but he doesn’t go into any details, and without knowing the cost, it’s hard to determine if it’s actually too high or not.
It wastes a campaign's limited money because they are investing in mailers and advertisements to voters who have already voted, and also they have to start sending them out earlier: Boo hoo. 2) The vast majority of mailers and advertisements are a waste, because they go to people who are not politically engaged at all, or people who will not be convinced by campaign literature from a candidate they don’t like.
3) It’s exhausting because people are needed at polling places for more days: This is just a retread of the first argument, again without details. Are campaigns and parties struggling to recruit people for these jobs? They certainly might be, but there are no quotes or statistics or anything offered as proof.
4) Voters might learn something after they vote that would change their minds: This is an appallingly weak argument, and his case would have been stronger without including it. There is always the chance that a voter will learn something later and wish they’d voted differently, regardless of when they vote. Voters are adults, and if they choose to vote early they are well aware that they are giving up the chance to vote differently later on. Most early voters are very politically engaged and know exactly who they want to vote for, and there is very little that would sway them to vote for the other side.
The benefit is clear: making it easier for as many citizens as possible to vote.
The cost clearly exists, but without knowing more, it's ultimately not convincing.
He says that this has become a partisan issue, and he’s almost certainly correct. (Nearly everything seems to become partisan nowadays.) Without knowing which party is for it, and which is against, I’m going to come down on the side of protecting continued access to early voting for 45 days.
Interesting article though! I enjoyed reading it. 🙂