Friday is the first day of voting for the June primary because Virginia has 45 days of early voting. That's the longest in the country. University of Virginia political analyst J. Miles Coleman says numbers from last year's primaries show Democrats are more likely than Republicans to vote early. But, he says, Republicans are also showing up early.
"If you look at some of the competitive Republican primaries last year, the early vote is consistently 20-30% of the overall vote," says Coleman. "So, not as much as Democrats, but it's still not nothing. That's still a valuable piece of electoral real estate."
Jennifer Victor is a political science professor at George Mason University, and she says research shows having a long period of early voting can actually end up decreasing turnout.
"Election Day is an event that we can all focus on, and it becomes a community thing," Victor says. "And when you have a long early voting period, it kind of decreases the climax of Election Day in a way that can have a negative impact on turnout unless you've also coupled your voter reforms with things like same-day voting."
Virginia now has same-day registration, but Victor says Virginia's ID laws are more restrictive than other places. As a result, she says, the jury is still out on whether Virginia's 45 days of early voting increases turnout or perhaps even decreases it.
You can find more information about deadlines and other voting details here.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
