Nail Biter in VA: Fast Results, SDR Voters
Nail Biter in VA: Fast Results, SDR Voters
Virginia voters went for VP Harris in 2024 presidential race that was a neck and neck tally until the final precincts came in. The counting continues today with record-breaking Same Day Registrations.
The nation elected Republican President Donald J. Trump last night in a landslide victory that swept battleground states — amid a presidential tally nail-biter in Virginia before Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris pulled out a 5-point win.
By this afternoon, she had conceded the race to President Trump, who remained on track to be the first Republican president-elect to win the popular vote since 2004 in a major re-alignment of American political coalitions.
Many precincts saw active voters who had not cast a ballot in years show up to vote, making many local city and town council races closer than usual.
Tallies:
Virginia voters cast over 2 million votes on Tues. Nov. 5th, after casting 2.3 million votes during early voting to bring the Commonwealth’s unofficial tally of ballots cast in the 2024 General Election to 4,355,785, according to Virginia’s Dept. of Elections.
Turnout looked to be about 72% of the active-voter electorate, which increased from 5.8 million to 5.9 million due to Same Day Registration ballots that skyrocketed by more than 120,000 by the end of the voting period. SDR began on Oct. 16th.
Those ballots are being reviewed this week by electoral boards’ canvases before local results are due to be reported out by Nov 15th. The Dept. of Elections is slated to conduct an audit of the results before certification in December.
(See Dept. of Elections statistics page here.)
As the Reuters’ feed monitored by EPEC Team volunteer CTO Jon Lareau below shows, the presidential race tallies were close throughout Election Night.
Other statewide results:
—Democrat incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine had been called the winner of the U.S. Senate seat against Republican challenger Hung Cao by a 54% to 45% margin.
CONGRESSIONAL RACES:
Democrats and Republicans both held onto their seats, including two open seats in VA-7 and VA-10 that Democrat candidates won:
Republican Congressional Seats:
CD 1 = Rep. Rob Wittman
CD 2 = Rep. Jen Kiggans*
CD 5 = John McGuire (R)
CD 6 = Rep. Ben Cline
CD 9 = Rep. Morgan Griffith
Democrat Congressional Seats:
CD 3 = Rep. Bobby Scott
CD 4 = Rep. Jennifer McClellan
CD 7 = Eugene Vindman (D)
CD 8 = Rep. Don Beyer
CD 10 = Suhas Subramanyam (D)
CD 11 = Rep. Gerry Connolly
—See Virginia’s 2024 Election Results via the Associated Press election data feed here.
—See VPAP’s election data feeds here.
Skyrocketing Same Day Registrations
Provisional tallies and Same Day Registration numbers were skyrocketing throughout early voting and on Election Day Nov. 5th.
The numbers are staggering:
Early Voting = 27,411
Election Day Same Day Registration = 81,287
‘Other’ (traditional provisional) = 11,757
Total provisional/SDR = 121,038
(See Dept. of Elections’ statistics page here.)
See the image below of the Top 20 localities in the SDR Count (mobile readers can “pinch up” the image):
OTHER ANALYSIS:
Rick Naigle, EPEC Team senior analyst and board member, is working through the process performance of the 2024 election.
On first blush, he awards a B+, including for its continued swift reporting of results, and with some room for improvement.
He adds:
•Voters chose In Person voting over By Mail by about a 4:1 ratio
•By Mail voting process needs improvement; out-of-state voters are being disenfranchised (20% less successful than in-state by mail voters)
•The number of Provisional voters is alarming - 20x the # in 2020. This slows down counting process and many may be ineligible. Not clear how canvases are checking eligibility.
•Need to improve capture of Ballot Receipt Time.
•Lack of TIME data hampers full data audit.
•In-Person voting much improved; not ALL On Machine ballots have TIME data.
•Ballot receipt dates outside Early Voting window remain an issue.
•Issued ballots are OUT; none should have a Date / Time of receipt. ##
(Full report to follow this week with Naigle’s process analysis of all aspects of Virginia’s election management.)
UOCAVA/OVERSEAS VOTERS:
The UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) vote tallies as of Nov. 5th early voting (DAL) data had broken out to countable ballots as follows:
Overseas Citizens = 14,509
Military = 30,862 (corrects prior report to note active military outside their homes are UOCAVA eligible.)
The numbers appear to have settled into similar patterns as observed in the 2020 data.
EPEC Team’s Own Surge to Report:
Throughout the 45-day early voting marathon and Election Night, EPEC Team experienced a surge in new donors and subscribers!
On behalf of EPEC Team volunteers who give of their time and expertise for this charitable mission, thank you for your support that helps us build on our work.
Virginia is now less than a year away from its next election for governor on Nov. 4th *, 2025. It also has to hold a special election for the seat held by State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam (D-32), who has won a U.S. House seat.
Virginia is also rolling out a new Statewide Voter Registration System (SVRS) in 2025.
EPEC Team volunteers plan to be working our charitable mission of public education of electoral processes and promoting voter participation.
To join us, see our volunteer page.
EPEC Team is still publishing extra reports to wrap up the 2024 Presidential Election, including analysis, election technology, process management — and results!
For more about early voting ballot types cast, check out daily absentee list (DAL) summaries on EPEC.info and DigitalPollwatchers.org.
Until our next report on the 2024 Election, that’s a wrap. #