Seeds of doubt do not seem as widely sown this midterm election season as during votes of recent past, but lies and deceit still grow aplenty, depending on where you look as Tuesday’s election approaches, officials caution.
“There’s still the misinformation that is out there, and of course, social media keeps that going,” said Traci Clark, Botetourt County director of elections. “It is frustrating for those of us who work in the field, but we just do our best to get the correct information out there, and be as transparent as possible for the voters. That’s all we can do.”
About 13% of Botetourt’s registered constituency had already cast ballots through in-person and by-mail voting options as of early last week, Clark said.
“The biggest thing that causes us heartburn is knowing that we put so much effort into trying to make sure that everything that we do is by the letter of the law,” Clark said. “It just causes heartburn when there’s information put out there that is not true, put out there by people who don’t do their research before they start passing stuff around.”
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Out of about 26,000 registered voters in Botetourt, 2,314 had voted early in-person, while another 1,043 mail-in ballots were already received as of Tuesday, she said. Early voting ended at 5 p.m. Saturday.
In Botetourt, there are two competitive races this year: the 6th District congressional contest between U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt, and Democrat Jennifer Lewis. Buchanan residents also have a competitive town council race with four candidates running for two seats: James Eubank, Mitchell Fritz, James Manspile and Elwood Donald Schechterly, Jr.
“Everybody has been very nice, very cordial to the officers working up front with the early voting,” Clark said. “It doesn’t seem to be as contentious as it was last year, or the year before, of course.”
Presidential elections like in 2020 tend to attract more voter participation than midterm elections, like the vote occurring this year. Nonetheless, some people in Botetourt concerned about the process have asked about being election observers, Clark said.
“So we may have a couple in our precincts, but probably not very many,” Clark said. “Botetourt doesn’t have a lot of that, and usually when we have people with questions, it’s not a contentious thing.”
People who do have questions about the electoral process should fill out some volunteer paperwork and get involved with their local department of elections, Clark said. Any Virginia locality could benefit from more people working the polls, and the volunteers usually benefit themselves from the firsthand experience.
“Work an election or two,” Clark said. “You’ll get an inside look at all the preparation and the checks and balances that we have, and the laws that we have to follow to make sure that the election is done correctly.”
Same-day voter registration was a new offering this year. During the 45-day early voting period, people could register and vote all at once.
“We’ve had quite a few people who have taken advantage of that,” Clark said. “The majority of those were youngsters who were just turning 18… we’ve had a really good turnout with the youngsters this time.”
Overall early voter participation is up from last midterm election in Botetourt County, when 970 voters cast ballots before Election Day 2018, she said.
Expanded access to early voting as a result of the coronavirus has led more people statewide to participate early in recent elections, rather than waiting for the second Tuesday of November.
“Really there hasn’t been any wait at all to speak of,” Clark said of early voting. “It’s been a pretty smooth operation.”
A lot of people might not realize the extent of effort required to put on an election, she said. It takes months or work and many volunteers to prepare this American tradition, tried and true as apple pie.
“We want to make sure that we provide a safe, fair environment for all voters, regardless of age or political persuasion,” Clark said. “I’ve lived in Botetourt all my life, so it’s very important to me that things are done right, because this is my home.”
For anyone in Virginia heading to the polls on Tuesday, Clark reminded voters to double-check their registrations, because polling places might have changed due to redistricting.
Here’s a look at at other localities in the region:
RoanokePreliminary early voting totals in Roanoke suggest evidence of strong voter turnout for this midterm election.
Early voting in Roanoke had brought in the votes of about 6,150 people as of Monday, equal to 9% of the city’s 65,758 registered voters, officials said.
In 2018, the most recent year with a city council election but no presidential election on the same ballot, voters cast 22,853 total votes. Assuming all voters cast all three of their votes apiece, about 7,617 voters went to the polls in all of 2018.
For comparison, more than 31,000 people voted in the 2020 Roanoke City Council election, which occurred alongside that year’s presidential election.
This year, there is the 6th District congressional race on Roanoke ballots and also 11 candidates are running for four city council seats: Democratic incumbents Joe Cobb and Vivian Sanchez-Jones along with Luke Priddy and Peter Volosin; Republicans Dalton Baugess, Nick Hagen, Maynard Keller and Peg McGuire; and independents David Bowers, Jamaal Jackson and Preston Tyler.
The Roanoke elections office had welcomed 4,052 in-person early voters and received 2,100 mailed ballots as of Monday, Director of Elections and General Registrar Andrew Cochran wrote by email.
That means early voting this year on its own attracted close to as many voters as in 2018, and that was with six days still left for further participation.
“We’re still enjoying good early results for early voting,” said Matt Jones, who is managing the campaigns of the Democratic candidates for city council and who made the comparison.
Jones said it’s hard to know for sure what voting trends will emerge now that city council elections take place in November. But he also said the data so far provides “a good idea of what we can expect to see in off-year election for city council turnout.”
Roanoke County
Roanoke County Registrar Anna Cloeter said approximately 9,000 of the county’s roughly 73,500 registered voters had voted early as of Thursday afternoon.
The county is split into two 6th and 9th congressional districts.
The 6th as noted before, involves the incumbent Republican Cline against Democrat Lewis. In the 9th, U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, is running against Democrat Taysha DeVaughan of Big Stone Gap.
The congressional races are the only competitive races on Roanoke County ballots.
Salem Registrar Dana Oliver said 2,870 of 17,888 registered voters in the city in the city had cast their ballot early as of Thursday afternoon.
Oliver said she expected that number to reach well over 3,000 participants by the time early voting ends Saturday.
Four candidates are vying for two city council seats this year. Incumbents Randy Foley and John Saunders are seeking reelection, while challengers Anne Marie Green and Hunter Holliday hope to get enough votes to serve their first term on the governing body.
Salem is in the 6th District congressional district, so voters will choose between Cline, Lewis or a write-in candidate.
Montgomery County
In Montgomery County, about 10% of registered voters cast ballots early in person or otherwise mailed in their choices, officials said Thursday.
As of Thursday in Montgomery County, 4,242 people voted early in-person, and another 2,079 mailed in ballots.
Of those mailed ballots, 1,900 had been “pre-processed,” and another 179 were “marked,” said Registrar Connie Viar. Pre-processed means the ballots were put through the machine, while marked means they were scheduled to go through the machine the following day.
Montgomery County has 61,453 registered voters, according to Viar’s office. Viar said her office has seen an increase in early voters within the past week
Viar couldn’t comment Thursday on how the turnout so far compares to other periods. She did note that there are no local races—including Blacksburg and Christiansburg town council elections—in the county this year.
The only race on Montgomery County ballots is the 9th congressional contest.
Franklin County
Of Franklin County’s almost 40,000 registered voters, 4,309 voted early as of Friday, according to an email from county Registrar Kay Chitwood.
Leading up to the election, Chitwood said local voters’ main concern has been about redistricting and where they should vote. Mailed notifications from the Virginia Department of Elections have helped address that.
In addition to the 9th congressional race, there is a competitive race for Rocky Mount Town Council in Franklin County. The mayoral race includes incumbent Steve Angle and challenger Holland Perdue. Six candidates are running for three council seats: incumbents Ralph Casey and Bobby Moyer along with Ben Pinckard Sr., Philip Bane, Ben Mullins and David Clements.
As of Thursday in Radford, 828 ballots had been cast early in-person and 210 were mailed in, Registrar Tracy Howard said. The city has approximately 9,700 registered voters, putting turnout at that time at just more than 10%, he said.
“This type of election, if we hit 30% overall, we’ll be doing very well in the local election,” Howard said of voter participation.
Howard said during this time last year a few hundred more people had cast early ballots, a turnout he added seemed to have been helped by the governor’s race at the time.
This year, however, is still an eventful one for the city’s political landscape as there are three competitive races – the 9th congressional as well as city council and school board races.
Six candidates are running for four council seats: incumbent Jessie Foster, Kellie Banks Artrip, Bob Davis, Seth Gillespie, Janiele Hamden and Chad McClanahan.
Four candidates are running for three seats: Gloria Boyd, Chris Calfee, Ed Dickenson and Jane Swing.
Staff writers Molly Hunter, Yann Ranaivo, Jeff Sturgeon and Sam Wall contributed to this report.
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