Now that early primary voting has started across Virginia, Republicans are encouraging their voters to get to the polls, even though many of them oppose 45 days of early voting.
Republicans opposed the creation of a 45-day window for early voting in Virginia. But then last year, they switched gears and announced a program called "Secure Your Vote" encouraging Republicans to vote early. But then after the election was over, several Republican delegates introduced bills to roll back early voting – including Chesterfield County Delegate Mark Earley.
"When you have primaries, generals and specials, I think that truly is something resembling never-ending voting, sort of year-round voting," Earley says. "So, I think this is primarily intended to be a cost-saving measure for the general registrars."
Now that early voting has started for this cycle, Republicans are trying to embrace early voting again, even though they were trying to roll it back earlier this year.
"They were for it before they were against it, and now they are for it again," says former Republican Delegate David Ramadan, who is now with the Schar School at George Mason University.
"It's realpolitik. It's playing to what the base wants to hear in legislation and then it is reality when it comes to actual campaigning."
With 45 days of early voting, Virginia has the longest campaign season in the country.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
