PETERSBURG – While voter turnout for the 2024 election here was not as high as originally expected given the presence of City Council races and the casino referendum on the ballot, Petersburg did see its highest-ever turnaround of same-day registration [SDR] traffic, the city’s general registrar reported.
However, as Dawn Wilmoth sees it, an increase in SDR numbers, particularly on the day when everyone goes to the polls, is a record that comes with its share of logistical pains. Even though folks can register and vote on the same day during the Early Voting process, Wilmoth said a combination of available data and her years of experience as a registrar indicate it most often becomes a to-do item on the traditional Election Day.
In the 2024 election cycle, Petersburg recorded 452 same-day registrations, according to Virginia Department of Election statistics. Before this year, the most SDRs seen in the city was 120.
Two-thirds of the 2024 total – 305 – came in on Tuesday.
“SDRs are a process that is helpful to those who let time and deadlines get away from them,” Wilmoth said. “But they should not become the norm creating undue burdens upon the election community to research each and make determination on the validity of them in five days’ time.”
Virginia began to offer same-day registrations with the 2022 general election. Before that, no one could sign up within 21 days of the general election.
Anyone who does same-day registration submits a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots are not immediately sent through the vote-counting machine. Instead, they must be reviewed and approved by a local electoral board and counted separately.
The voter is given notice of when the application comes up for review. If approved, the ballot is counted. If not, the registrar’s office will advise the voter why it could not be counted.
During the Early Voting period, SDRs are done at a local registrar’s office or a designated satellite location. Election Day SDRs can only be done at polling sites, and that means in addition to walking the registrant through the process, the provisional ballot must be placed in a separate envelope, not a ballot box, for review and action.
Wilmoth said it “bogs down the Election Day experiences” for not just the election officers but also for the registrants themselves.
Under Virginia election law, officers must remain with the voter from filling out the application to filling out the provisional ballot. Then, those ballots must be placed in envelopes separate from those in the voting machines and delivered to the electoral board office for further action.
Because of that, Wilmoth noted, SDR voters find themselves having to wait longer than the typical Election Day voter to cast their ballots, and they walk away from the polls without immediate confirmation that their votes will count.
“It’s an overwhelming process,” Wilmoth said, especially for offices in college towns where students vote provisionally. “I feel sympathy for them.”
In Petersburg, 51% of the city’s total number of registered voters cast ballots this year. That was down from the 2020 presidential election with 62% voter turnout, according to VDOE data.
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Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at [email protected] or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.
This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Petersburg see number of same-day voter registrations increase
