Lawmakers in Richmond are considering a plan to fund drop boxes for ballots across Virginia.
Members of the General Assembly are considering a plan that would finance a series of drop boxes for absentee ballots across Virginia, similar to ones that already exist in several places in Northern Virginia. But who should be allowed to drop ballots into those drop boxes?
Republican Senator Steve Newman of Bedford County says only voters should be allowed to place their own ballots into those boxes.
“We will for the first time lose the chain of custody between a voter and the ballot box," Newman says.
Several Republican senators say they are concerned about ballot harvesting, adding they’re worried groups with bad motives will collect ballots and destroy them or change them.
Democrats say the plan to finance drop boxes has enough safeguards to prevent fraud. Senator Creigh Deeds is a Democrat from Bath County.
“What do you do about that 88-year old widow who’s in her home without children and without family members, only with caregivers? Are you saying she can’t vote? I say that’s disenfranchisement," he explains. "We have to be about letting people vote.”
Senate Democrats defeated an amendment limiting who is able to drop ballots into those drop boxes on a party-line vote.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
