Democrats are rejecting Republican efforts to cut back on early voting.
Last year, Governor Glenn Youngkin leaned into early voting and asked Republicans to cast their ballots early. Now, Republicans in the General Assembly want to cut back on the 45-day window of early voting.
"Every time I'm in my registrar's office in my localities, they talk about how tough it is to get folks to work all the precincts on Election Day and to staff the 45 days of early voting," says Republican Delegate Scott Wyatt of Hanover County.
Delegate Mark Sickles is a Democrat from Fairfax who says the 45-day window makes sense.
"The reason we have 45 days is that's what the federal government requires us to have a ballot ready to send to people that are serving overseas," Sickles says.
Delegate Cia Price of Newport News says early voting is not a pandemic-inspired change.
"2020 happened to be the year that Democrats had the majority and also happened to be the year that we had COVID," Price says. "These were bills that we had been carrying for years prior to COVID, so these were not COVID measures."
So far, all the bills to roll back Virginia's 45 days of early voting have all been defeated, and Democrats say they have no intention of making voting less available.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
