Voters line up on final day of early voting in Virginia: 'Your vote is your voice'

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — Thousands of people turned out to cast their ballot on the final day of early voting in Virginia.

"The weather's been beautiful this time of year, maybe a little too beautiful, that's why everyone's coming out today," said Mark Coakley, General Registrar for Henrico County.

Coakley said by 10:30 a.m. Saturday, more than 2,000 voters had cast their ballot in three different early voting locations in the county. Around 4,000 cast their vote on Friday.

"For the total number of in-person voters, we're about 63,000 in person. We've mailed out about 25,000 and received back about 20,000 or so," Coakley said.

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CBS 6 spoke with Lenora Carter at the Henrico Voter Registration and Elections Office when she had been in line for about an hour and 15 minutes.

"It's a lot on the line," Carter said when asked why she was voting early. "You have to do what's best, for the communities, not just yourself, but for all people."

Rodrigous Robinson, a poll worker, said despite the long lines, the process went smoothly.

"You know, if you want something changed, it's your voice," Robinson said. "Your vote is your voice."

Coakley said elections workers would ensure the safety of ballots being cast in person or via mail.

"We have the ballots locked up in cages in a locked ballot room. We have ballot control procedures; we know how many ballots go out and how many come back. We do daily logs for absentee voting, so we know how many ballots have been issued every day," Coakley said. "On November 20, we are going to hand-select precincts and then hand out those ballots to make sure they match up with what the tapes had on Election Day, with the number of ballots cast, to verify that the machines are working in proper order."

According to a post by Richmond's Office of Elections on X, about 26% of Richmond voters have cast their ballot.

"I've been prepping my election officers to prepare for a huge influx of voters, so that's what I'm looking forward to seeing Tuesday," said Keith Balmer, Richmond's General Registrar.

In Richmond, voters were encouraged to vote down ballot in the city's mayoral, city council and school board elections.

"Last year in Virginia, more than a third of the school board races were decided by fewer than 500 votes," said Tiffany Van der Hyde, Executive Director for We The People for Education. "So when you're talking about your vote actually counting and mattering, school board and local races are where it's at."

Balmer said precinct chiefs will begin calling in results when the polls close on Election Day.

"Then we have to wait on absentee, and absentee takes the longest amount of time because there are 40,000 people who have already voted in absentee by mail and early voting, and it takes a long time for the machines to calculate all of that data," Balmer said. "My expectation is, as far as absentee, you know, you probably get those results around 10 or so, so fingers crossed nothing goes astray."

Balmer also said elections are closely testing voter machines and monitoring voter rolls.

On Saturday, Gordon Deans, a new Virginia resident who moved from Florida, had to be reinstated onto the voter roll before he voted.

"I came here to Virginia, I signed up to get my driver's license, at the same time I was signing up to get my voter registration. I signed everything I thought I had right, everything was going right. I got a letter in the mail that then said I wasn't eligible to vote," Deans said. "I went ahead and called into the Board of Elections and they said, 'No, no, we should be able to handle you today.' And I was able to come down to Laburnum Avenue, and literally, was able to sign in for everything, get my registration all settled and able to vote."

Coakley said at least one voter he encountered was incorrectly removed but was able to register and cast her ballot.

"She was very grateful for the process that we had in place," Coakley said.

In Chesterfield, over 6,000 people had already cast their ballots with about one hour left until the polls closed.

"Tuesday, I want everyone to know that they need to vote at their assigned polling location," said Missy Vera, General Registrar for Chesterfield County, encouraging voters to use the county registrar's polling place search tool. "We've done a lot of polling place changes this year, so I want people to look for their polling place and know where they're going to vote on Election Day."

Did you cast your ballot on the final day of early voting? Weigh in on the WTVR CBS 6 Facebook page.

CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.

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