From EPEC Team newsletter: Bills are a response to Virginia’s Same Day Registration chaos in 2024. EPEC’s roundup looks at election bills the governor signed, and ones that met the veto pen.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed two bills this week that provide Virginia citizens (especially college students) more time to register for regular balloting in the 2025 elections. The bills are seen as a response to Same Day Registration chaos that hit Virginia’s 2024 election.
HB 1735 and companion bill SB 991, passed out of the 2025 General Assembly, reduce from “21 to 10 days the number of days during which registration records” are closed before primary and general elections.
As EPEC Team documented, more than 123,000 provisional ballots were cast during early voting and Election Day in the 2024 race, an increase of over 4,000% since SDR began in 2022.
The vast majority of these provisional ballots were SDR.
SDR voters overwhelmed many precincts during early voting and election day. The Dept. of Elections was hit with complaints after students were given a pass on residency requirements and allowed to cast ballots.
After a coordinated use of SDR by college students, voter-list records showed a spike in duplicate registrations. Provisional logs also did not address whether individuals were assigned multiple voter IDs during SDR, and whether they were caught.
After a slew of complaints, legislators took up the issue in the General Assembly.
They settled on the bills Gov. Youngkin just signed. Both extend the time to register for regular balloting.
The current deadline to register for a regular ballot in Virginia’s 2025 general election is Oct. 14, 2025, which is 21 days before early voting starts.
The new statutes would push the registration deadline ahead to the following Friday (or thereabouts). The bills also add a few more days for regular registration before special elections are held. The new deadlines go into effect July 1.
The result is that Same Day Registration allowances kick in a little later during Virginia’s 45-day Early Voting period through Election Day.
Another bill addresses the difficulty that localities faced in 2024 when they had to plow through the process of authenticating huge spikes in SDR ballots in time to report final results to the state Board of Elections.
SB 1044, which Gov. Youngkin also signed, directs general registrars to report to the Dept. of Elections the number of valid provisional ballots (as determined by electoral boards), and the results of valid provisional ballots by voters assigned to precincts “no later than 5:00 p.m. on the tenth day after the election day.”
The bill addresses confusion over the actual number of SDR ballots that were counted, a process that dragged on for months after regular voting had concluded.
In addition, SB 1044 requires:
—Total number of provisional ballots in each locality;
—Number of ballots determined to be valid by the electoral board, and the results of such valid provisional ballots by voters assigned to such precinct;
—Results from provisional voting and voting at the precinct on election day be reported separately (break out the numbers);
—Uniform standards established by the Dept. of Elections for localities to report results.
The Republican governor also vetoed election bills passed by the Democrat-led assembly that would have added more complexity and less transparency to elections management.
They include:
—SB 1009, a ranked choice voting measure;
—HB 2002, which would have restricted the sources registrars use to perform list maintenance;
—A major omnibus bill (HB 2276) that would have re-written over 20 sections of election law and added more complexity to voter-list maintenance;
—HB 2668, which would have altered local control of election boards by allowing the State Board of Elections unprecedented power to remove general registrars and EB members.
In all, Gov. Youngkin signed 599 of 916 bills the assembly sent him. He offered amendments on 159, including amendments on the budget, and vetoed 157.
The full list of signed bills is here.
The full list of amended bills is here.
The full list of vetoed bills is here.
As for the 2025 Virginia General Assembly session, that’s a wrap. Next up, primary scrambles ahead of a gubernatorial election and assembly races in the fall. #
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