Virginia’s 45-day period of early in-person voting before an election, one of the longest in the nation, could be significantly shortened under legislation rolled out by Republican Del. Chad Green.
The measure would reduce the early voting window to just 10 days, a move that has already sparked debate.
“This was brought to me by some of our electoral board and election workers,” Green told WTOP. “They’re getting burned out.”
Green said 45 days was “way too long” and argued that a shorter early voting period would reduce both the administrative burden on election officials and the risk of fraud.
“The average cost to have a polling place open … is about $2,500 a day,” Green said. “It makes a lot of sense to cut that back to 10 days, and if we did that, it would roughly save about $12 million in direct savings.”
Democratic Del. Charniele Herring, the majority leader in the House of Delegates, released a statement calling it a “blatant attempt by Virginia House Republicans to put barriers in front of the ballot box.”
“House Democrats will reject any effort to limit Virginians’ access to the ballot box,” Herring said. “Instead of suppressing voter participation, we should be focused on ensuring voting is accessible and secure.”
Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities in Richmond, controlling the Senate 21-19 and the House of Delegates 51-49.
“It doesn’t make harder for people to vote at all,” Green argued. “I’m trying to keep this nonpartisan… I believe it’s a tremendous waste of resources to have this extensive period.”
The early voting window across Virginia used to be just seven days, but it was dramatically expanded to 45 days under legislation passed by the General Assembly in 2020.
Green said, after speaking with election workers and electoral boards, he determined that putting a 10-day cap on the window would “save the localities some money and really not affect any type of voter turnout.”
“Everybody seemed to think that a sweet spot in that would be 10 days,” Green said. “It wasn’t a number that I pulled out of the air.”
The 45-day period in Virginia is weeks longer than neighboring jurisdictions. In the presidential election this past November, Maryland had eight days of early voting from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, and D.C. had seven days of early voting from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3.
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