If you live in a town or city that has May elections for town or city councils (these include Bristol, Chesapeake, three districts in Covington, Danville, Fairfax City, and fifteen other cities, as well as nearly 125 towns from Accomac to Wytheville), there’s a tiny bug in Virginia election law that affects who may, and who may not, vote that day. (Those elections also include 12 cities and two towns voting for school board members.)
§24.2-403 of the Virginia Code provides that
Any person who is otherwise qualified and will be 18 years of age on or before the day of the next general election shall be permitted to register in advance and also vote in any intervening primary or special election. Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, any person who is otherwise qualified and will be 18 years of age on or before the day of the next November general presidential election shall be permitted to register in advance of and also vote in any intervening presidential primary and any other primary held on the same day as the presidential primary.
In other words, if you were 17 years old in February but your birthday is in September, you could have registered to vote in time for the March 6 presidential primary and cast a ballot legally, even at the age of 17. You will also be able to vote in the U.S. Senate primary or any other primary election scheduled for June 12.
To vote on May 1, however, in city or town elections — or any non-primary election held that day — you must be 18 years old by that date.
Election officials in those cities and towns holding elections on May 1 have been instructed by the State Board of Elections (SBE) to create a list, a subset of the Registered Voters List (RVL), called “Under 18 Voters by Election Day” listing those voters who are eligible to vote in primary elections and the November election this year, but not eligible to vote in the May elections.
Confused?
Don’t worry. The chances of a 17-year-old who is not a politics geek showing up to vote in a local election on May 1 are pretty low. Those who do appear at their polling place will be sorely disappointed but will learn a civics lesson and have something to gripe about with friends for weeks or months to come.
It’s still not as confusing as what happened in Maryland a few years back. A glitch in the election calendar put the primary for Baltimore mayor in September 2003 in advance of a November 2004 general election. As a result, 16-year-olds were eligible to vote in that primary. Whether they tried to vote in subsequent elections before they turned 18 is a question only Maryland election officials can answer.
