WASHINGTON — Virginians who want to vote in the Mar. 1 presidential primary only have until Monday to register or update their information.
This is the first presidential election where Virginia has allowed online voter registration. All Virginia voters who vote in person must show a photo ID.
Just in Fairfax County, more than 1,600 new voters have registered in the last week alone. The county says it has also gotten about 3,700 other applications for name or address changes or re-registration.
Virginia voters do not register by party, so primaries are open, however voters can only choose one of the primaries to participate in.
Voters can check their registration status through the State Board of Elections.
The Republican Party of Virginia reversed course last weekend on its request that voters casting ballots in the Republican presidential primary sign a statement stating that they are Republicans.
A frustrated State Board of Elections approved the change at an emergency meeting on Thursday despite the fact that the election had already begun with absentee voting on Jan. 15.
The board had asked when the request was taken up in December whether the party was certain it wanted to include the statement requirement as allowed under state law.
Then, on Jan. 30, the party’s State Central Committee unanimously voted, with no warning to the state board, to rescind the request. That sent the board of elections scrambling to figure out how to respond.
The state spent about $62,000 to print the statement over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday period.
The state party had offered to pay for the printing of the pledge only if they got to control all the details of what was on it, and they could claim that the document was the party’s property.
Virginia Department of Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortes says that is not allowed in a state-run election.
“The original submission from the Republican Party had party branding on it, said the document was property of the Republican Party, [and] all those things were stripped out because they’re official election materials; those don’t belong to any outside entities,” he said following the board meeting Thursday.
Cortes said he was extremely frustrated about the entire loyalty statement issue, especially because Republican Party of Virginia put out a statement following the party’s decision to rescind the oath that tried to blame him and Democrats Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Attorney General Mark Herring for the controversy surrounding the statement.
“It’s really frustrating for me to hear you all not accepting responsibility that … your decision was to move forward with requiring the statement, and now because you have seen that voters are unhappy with it, and you’ve gotten bad publicity, you have chosen now to rescind it,” Cortes told RPV Executive Director John Findlay.
Donald Trump’s campaign was outspoken against the statement, with supporters even filing a lawsuit, and some voters were unsure about it.
WTOP was in Fairfax County when in-person absentee voting opened, and one of the very first voters in the state questioned the oath. It led the county’s general registrar to suggest to the board Thursday that keeping the oath could lead to even longer lines during the Mar. 1 primary.
“[Now], if you’re a Republican voter in Fairfax County, you’re going to have a much more simple experience, just come in, show your acceptable voter ID … and they’ll give you the ballot as long as you’re eligible,” says Cameron Sasnett.
Board of Elections Vice Chair Clara Belle Wheeler, a Republican, believes that after the back-and-forth the issue of loyalty statements is unlikely to come up again anytime soon in Virginia.
A bill advancing through the state senate would ban parties that choose to have a state-run presidential primary from requiring a pledge by voters who chose to vote in that primary that they will support the party’s candidate.
The Board of Elections said at its meeting Thursday that after the reversal for this election, the pledge or lack thereof should not cause any ballots to go uncounted. As of Wednesday afternoon, 1,316 absentee ballots had been returned statewide in Virginia’s Republican primary.
Maryland’s primary is not until April 26, and D.C.’s primary is June 14.
Both Maryland and D.C. have closed primaries, which means voters can only cast ballots in the primary of the party they are registered as identifying with.
Maryland’s voter registration deadline, which is also the deadline for voters who are already registered to change their party affiliations or update their other information, is April 5. The changes or registration can be done online, in-person or by mail. Early voting in Maryland’s primaries begins April 14.
In the District, new voters can register at the polls on election day, at an early voting site, or in advance, however voters who are already registered cannot change their party affiliation within 30 days of the election.
In all three jurisdictions, 17 year olds who will turn 18 before the general election in November are eligible to register and vote in the primaries.
