Next month, voters across Virginia will be heading to the polls to vote in local elections. That’s despite efforts to move those elections to June or November.
Governor Ralph Northam wanted to move the May 5th local elections to November. But a coalition of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate blocked that effort, hoping to force the governor to call a special session to consider legislation to move the local elections to June 16th.
Here’s Democratic Senator Lionell Spruill of Chesapeake arguing to his colleagues that they should reject the governor’s proposal.
“Sometimes we have to do something to force the administration to do something,” Spruill said.
A majority of senators agreed, and they did end up forcing the governor to do something. But it wasn’t what they wanted. Instead of a special session, the governor moved the election back two weeks to May 19th.
Now candidates like Len Myers, who’s running for mayor of Chesapeake, have to campaign during a stay-at-home order.
“There’s no opportunity to hold any type of candidate forums," he explains. "There’s no opportunity to knock on doors and meet potential voters face to face and share your views and get their concerns. So I’m running with one hand tied behind my back.”
Voters will have a few extra weeks to request absentee ballots to prevent the dangers of voting in person. And having the election in May means all those absentee ballots that have already been cast won’t be thrown away.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
