Pre-Election Turnout In Virginia Adds Intrigue To Election Day

VIRGINIA — Virginia saw a huge number of votes cast prior to Election Day, with 2.7 million people voting either in person or by mailed ballots, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.

The total number of votes cast in Virginia prior to Election Day equaled almost 70 percent of the total votes cast in the 2016 election. In 2016, 3,750,916 votes were cast in the presidential election. Prior to Tuesday, 2,736,282 voteshad already been cast in the state. Virginia has 5,975,696 registered voters.

The big turnout for in-person absentee voting and the heavy use of mail-in voting is contributing to short lines across Northern Virginia. Aside from when precincts opened at 6 a.m. across the state, lines have been relatively short or nonexistent at many precincts.

Among the 1,128,812 voters who requested that ballots be mailed to them, Virginia voters had returned 940,255 of them as of Nov. 1, according to the Department of Elections. About 188,500 of the requested ballots had not been received by elections offices prior to Election Day.

Virginia elections officials have been able to process the mail-in votes to get them ready to be counted. But they are not permitted by state law to start counting them until polls close at 7 p.m.

Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, will seek Virginia's 13 electoral votes in the Electoral College. Virginia is not considered a key swing state as it has been in past presidential elections.

In 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won Virginia with 1,981,473 votes to Trump's 1,769,443 votes. Former Barack Obama won Virginia in 2008 and 2016, although by a smaller margin than Clinton in 2016.

The nonpartisan website 270toWin, which tracks polls and election projections, lists Virginia as a state that will likely go to Biden.

"Shifting demographics, including more rapid population growth around Washington D.C., have made the state a battleground in recent elections, perhaps one that now leans Democratic again," the page states.

On Election Day, voters were able to enter precincts in Arlington and Falls Church, for example, without waiting in line.

"I just enjoy the process of coming in and voting in person," Arlington resident Daniel Miktus said about his decision to vote in person on Election Day at the Central Library precinct in Arlington. "Combine that with that I figured everyone else would be voting not in person, so I figured I could walk right in and walk right out and that's exactly what happened.

Across the United States, 99,657,079 ballots were cast prior to Election Day. In-person voting prior to Tuesday totaled 35,720,830, while mail ballots returned in the country totaled 63,936,249, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

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