It was a busy weekend for Governor Ralph Northam as he signed legislation from the 2020 General Assembly session. Among those are bills concerning voting in Virginia.
Bearing Drift Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Brian Schoeneman, who was once a member of the Fairfax County Electoral Board, noted the changes on Facebook. Brian’s thoughts:
Governor Northam signed a number of election law related bills on Sunday, making some significant changes to voting in the Commonwealth. These includes bills that :
?? Repeals the 2013 photo ID requirement, undoing a considerable amount of work that localities put in to ensuring all voters had access to photo ID, and at considerable taxpayer expense;
?? Makes Election Day a state holiday, ensuring that state workers, schools and other government offices are closed, but having little to no impact on private employers who are unlikely to follow suit;
?? Allowing no-excuse absentee voting for 45 days prior to an election. This is essentially a codification of existing practice, because most localities had no way to verify excuses given anyway;
?? Extension of voting hours from 7 PM to 8 PM, making a long day for our volunteer election officials even longer, with a likely marginal impact on turnout;
?? Automatic voter registration for people accessing services at a DMV location or the DMV website, which sounds good, but is likely going to create a large pool of “registered” voters who don’t realize or remember that they registered;
??Expanded timelines for obtaining and returning absentee ballots.
Most of these moves are changes to law that are solutions in search of a problem. All of these changes will be implemented in July, meaning they will be in play for the November presidential election.
Of those changes, I am particularly happy with the no-excuse absentee voting. I was challenged once by a registrar, while volunteering on a campaign, when she actually asked if I was sure I wouldn’t be anywhere in the county to vote on election day. Surprised, my response was that I could be anywhere in the Commonwealth — wherever needed — on that day so, no, it was most likely I wouldn’t be able to vote locally on election day. With this new law, there will be no questioning which, to be honest, I didn’t think was the state’s business to begin with. What difference did it make what your excuse was for not being able to get to the polls on election day?