A Blind Spot in Early Voting

A working group led by the Department of Elections is set to meet today to discuss how to restore granular results at the neighborhood level in future elections should large numbers of voters cast ballots at centralized locations.

In November 2020, the Covid pandemic created a tsunami of early voting, with nearly two-thirds of Virginians casting ballots before Election Day. Election officials did not have time to set in place systems that would assign these votes back to the precinct where voters lived. This leaves the public with no detailed map showing how Biden and Trump performed at the neighborhood level across Virginia.

The problem is deeper than the curiosity of political junkies. For instance, Virginia's new Redistricting Commission likely will be unable to consider the 2020 presidential election results when it draws new districts that don’t “unduly favor or disfavor” any political party.

The Chesapeake Solution

Last November, the City of Chesapeake tagged absentee ballots with a code that enabled election officials to associate each ballot with the neighborhood precinct assigned to the voter. Chesapeake was the only Virginia city to do this.

In November 2020, Republicans were more likely to vote in person on Election Day, which means a higher percentage of their votes were tallied in their neighborhood precincts. Democrats were more likely to vote early, which means their votes were tallied in a central location. Chesapeake is the only Virginia locality that planned ahead and was able to provide a full accounting at the neighborhood precinct level.

Source: Virginia Department of Elections

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