Expectations high for voter turnout
Precincts in the Rockbridge area have been open since 6 a.m., but voters keep pouring in, apparently in record numbers, to cast their ballots.
Local voter registration also broke records this year, raising expectations that turnout today may be at least 5 percentage points higher than in 2004.
Rockbridge County Voter Registrar Marilyn Earhart predicted a turnout of registered voters in the county as high as 90 percent. Rockbridge County, Buena Vista and Lexington all registered more voters than they did in the 2004 election, which held the previous record for voter turnout.
Scott Belliveau, chief of elections at Highland Belle precinct, has been working as a polling official for seven years. He says the turnout today is the highest he has ever seen.
“We knew it was going to be big this year, but this is quite a turnout,” Belliveau said.
He found 32 people already waiting in line when polls opened at 6 a.m. Since then, the line has been long and steady, but the voting process seems to be running smoothly. Waiting in line takes about 15 minutes at Highland Belle, and casting the ballot takes a minute at most.
“It was pretty quick, easy, I guess,” voter Catherine Lindsay said. Other voters say the process took less time than expected, but it was still the longest they had ever waited at the precinct.
Belliveau said about 38 percent of registered voters, including absentee voters, had cast their ballots by 10 a.m. He said in past election years Highland Belle had a 64 percent turnout.
“I think we could hit 75 percent quite easily today,” Belliveau said.
With such a big turnout, officials were bracing for problems.
Peak voting times were from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., when people were going to work; between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., when they had their lunch breaks; and from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., when they will go home from work. Polls close at 7.
Buena Vista has hired two more people this election year to assist with the expected increase in voters. Registrars have also been working overtime to ensure a smooth voting process today.
“We’re working, obviously, much longer than [scheduled] hours to make sure … that we have the preparations made to handle what we think will be one of the biggest turnouts in history at the polls,” Lexington Voter Registrar Carolyn Rendleman said.
Rendleman has been city registrar for 10 years. She expects up to 80 percent of registered voters to show up at the polls, after a turnout close to 70 percent in 2004. Rendleman credits the increase to people’s enthusiasm over the close race in Virginia.
“This is a swing state; they are excited about seeing how Virginia goes,” she said.
Transportation to and from polling places may be another concern for Rockbridge area residents. The Rockbridge Area Transportation System was ready to get area residents to and from polling places with carpools, said Executive Director Tim Root.
Four years ago, 71 percent of Virginia's registered voters cast ballots in the presidential election. A record 3.2 million voted. But about 4.5 million people were registered in 2004. This year, the voter rolls top 5 million. If the same percentage votes this year, about 300,000 more people will cast ballots in Virginia.
Registrars were worried that large numbers might increase the risk for irregularities at the polls. Not only long lines but also voting machine malfunctions had the potential to cause voter frustration. At the county’s Ben Salem precinct just after 7 a.m., voters were delayed for a few minutes by a glitch in the two electronic voting machines.
But registrars said last week they trusted their equipment.
“I am very confident about the machines,” Rendleman said.
She says the machines are kept locked and all the activity performed on them is automatically recorded. Access to the voting systems is reserved for employees of the registrar’s office.
Earhart says that the county registrar’s office has been running tests to make sure the machines are working well.
“We did have some [machines] that were off a little bit and we went in and changed it so that everything winds up good,” she said.
Polling places in Lexington, Buena Vista, and Rockbridge County use Patriot DRE machines, which use a paperless touch screen. There is no backup paper-vote system.
According to the nonpartisan organization VotersUnite!, documented failures of Patriot systems include loss of votes, under- and over-counting, and other malfunctions that caused delays at polling places.
But Rendleman remains confident.
“I think we have one of the best systems to catch voter problems, and the machine problems are just negligible,” she said.
One more factor – a light but steady rain – threatened to affect voter turnout today. Brad Gomez, and assistant professor of political science at Florida State University, contributed to a study exploring the link between bad weather and voter turnout.
The study showed that voter turnout decreases by about 1 percentage point for every inch of rain that a county receives above its average rainfall. Gomez’s results also indicated that the reduction in turnout benefited the Republican Party.
Despite the rain, though, local lines were long. And rain or shine, Election Day had everyone looking forward to seeing the results.
“I’m very excited,” Earhart said. “But I can’t wait for this to be over so I can get some sleep.”
Produced by
Washington and Lee
journalism students.
Lead Supervisors:
Prof. Brian
Richardson
Prof. Indira Somani
Editing supervisor:
Prof. Pamela Luecke
Reporting Supervisors:
Prof. Doug Cumming
Prof. Indira Somani
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd