State Senator Scott Surovell (36th District) recently penned a guest post for the Greater Alexandria Patch on the topic of early voting in Northern Virginia. Surovell, who claims to have knocked on twelve thousand doors in the past year, says that he has personally seen the success of early voting and believes the practice needs to be expanded. During his time canvassing, he helped no less than nine hundred people sign up for early voting using a secure online application. He claims that, of that number, few or none of them had any previous idea that they were eligible for early voting or voting from home, and consequently many did not vote in non-presidential elections… and, in fact, many would not have otherwise voted in the presidential election.
Virginia law gives some of the reasons for early voting eligibility as “a disability, lack of transportation, long commutes or disabled family members that required 24-7 home care,” Surovell wrote. Considering the fact that many people living in Northern Virginia work in the Capital and therefore deal with a long daily commute, more of NoVA’s citizens may be eligible for early voting than even they would think. Surovell claims that almost all commuters who ride the Metro’s Yellow, Blue and Orange Lines or the Virginia Railway Express are eligible to vote early, since they work outside of their home jurisdiction. Accordingly, the state should open early voting units at these Metro stations to make it easy and convenient for commuters to vote early.
This year saw what Surovell called an explosion in early voting: “In 2008, a little over 99,000 Fairfax County residents voted early. That dropped to 92,000 in 2012, but exploded this year to 120,000. The same was true in Prince William County. The reason? Localities opened more early voting locations and kept them open longer.” The primary reason more people don’t vote early, he surmised, is because they either don’t know that they are eligible to vote early or because voting early isn’t convenient enough. That’s why, the Senator believes, early voting as a program should be expanded throughout the state.
The Senate has passed a “no excuses” early voting bill twice, says Surovell, but the House of Delegates has torpedoed it as many times. He states that any future attempts to pass such a bill will meet similar fates. Surovell acknowledges that expanded early voting would cost money, but justifies it as worthy: “Facilitating more early voting will require more election officers and thus more money, but shorter lines and fewer disruptions save all of us time on Election Day and encourages more participation in our democracy.”
