From EPECTeam Voter Newsletter:
As in past years, observers from the Department of Justice are on the ground in Virginia (and all 50 states) to watch precincts for the Nov. 3rd General Election in localities such as Fairfax County, Prince William County and Charlottesville.
It is not clear how observers will be able to review Virginia Beach City’s election procedures regarding mail-in ballots. The Electoral Board apparently voted on Friday, Oct. 30 to block the DOJ and a third party group, the Advancement Project, from observing in precincts.
VBC is one among many localities that EPEC Team is urging observers to review — given the high number of unprocessed mail-in ballots still to be processed.
See Senior Analyst Rick Naigle’s report here on the Top Localities we believe should be observed regarding mail-in ballot processing:
VA Midterm Election Observer Placement Priorities
Many localities struggle to process mail-ins during an exhausting 45-day early voting run. But Virginia Beach City’s processing rates stand out.
For example, early voting Daily Absentee List (DAL) data from the Department of Elections showed VBC building up mail-in ballots in “marked” status for weeks at a time — with no movement of ballots to “pre-processed,” which indicates they have been checked for validity.
That would suggest returned, live, mail-in ballots were stored on the premises of VBC’s election office for weeks at a time.
By Oct. 27, Virginia Beach City had accumulated over 18,000 mail-in ballots to “marked” (received back) status. By Nov. 1, that number dropped to about 1,400. That would mean the Central Absentee Precinct (CAP) or mail-ballot processing staff, managed to review over 2,700 mail-in ballots a day for six days. That’s a lot of ballots.
Most CAPs in other localities cheer when they manage to process 1,000 mail-ballots checked through in a day.
Given that VBC is the biggest voting locality in the highly contested VA-02 Congressional Seat race, it would stand to reason that VBC would welcome transparency and scrutiny of its electoral processes. In that spirit, we are adding some more data analysis of their ballot processing.
In the time-series image below showing VBC’s progression of ballots mailed out since early voting started, the “X” in the shaded area marks the spot to ponder, given how many ballots have been moved to “pre-processed” (ready for tabulation) so fast.
VBC is not the only locality that has blasted through the review processes with its mail-in ballots this election cycle.
Our Top 10 List of Localities that Should be Observed
EPEC’s analysis of the Daily Absentee List (DAL) of all localities’ early voting data, shows that VBC is among the top 10 localities in Virginia that should be given priority for observing, especially with their mail-in ballot processing.
As mentioned above, Senior Data Analyst Rick Naigle has devised a ranking to reflect operational risk signals that he observed in the 1 November 2026 Daily Absentee List analysis, based on ballot statuses.
For example, he observed ballots issued, yet were listed under federal registration cancellation codes as Deceased, Declared Non-Citizen, Moved Out of State, Mentally Incapacitated, and Felon.
(We acknowledge that some felons’ voting rights may be restored via the governor’s office, but not all.)
See his report:
EPEC Report: VA 2026 Midterm Election Observer Priorities
Reminder on Mail-in Ballots, per the Dept. of Elections:
Mail-in ballots at this point “must be postmarked on or before election day (Nov. 3rd) and received by your general registrar’s office by noon on the third day following the election (In the event that that day is a holiday, the deadline is moved to the following business day).”