VA '24 Election Snowed by SDR Chaos
VA gears up for another big election year while still sorting through a blizzard of Same Day Registration records from 2024. Registrars are calling for changes.
Virginia’s experiment with its Same Day Registration statute, which went into effect in 2022, met its first major stress test during the 2024 Presidential Election.
Based on logs available so far, this much of a partial verdict is in:
SDR voters overwhelmed many precincts during early voting and election day. The Dept. of Elections has been hit with hundreds of complaints.
Election Day 2024 SDR chaos was pronounced in college towns, where students were allowed to use office buildings as residential addresses for SDR, contrary to Virginia statutes on residency requirements.
After a coordinated use of SDR by college students, voter-list records now show a spike in duplicate registrations. Provisional logs do not address whether individuals were assigned multiple voter IDs during SDR, and whether they were caught.
The Dept. of Elections says it has logged more than 900 pages of complaints. Among them: observers who documented disparities and inconsistencies in applying Virginia election statutes on election day 2024, including with SDRs.
Many of the complaints were filed under Title III of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
EPEC is still piecing together full records of the 2024 General Election using provisional logs, public records requests, surveys, and analysis of Virginia’s monthly registration-maintenance records.
Here’s What We Know:
—After regular registration ended on Oct. 15, 2024, SDR and provisional numbers began to skyrocket through early voting, which tallied 25,804 SDRs by the close.
Here’s a sample of the growth EPEC tracked.
—By Election Day, the skyrocketing numbers were headed for hyperspace. The Dept. of Elections tallied 85,480 Same Day Registrations (SDRs) to bring the overall tally to 123,902 provisional ballots to be processed after regular voting ended.
—By contrast, the first year SDR went into effect in 2022, Virginia processed just over 3,000 SDRs across the Commonwealth.
—Electoral boards reviewing SDR provisional ballots faced a compressed schedule to check eligibility and remove duplicates ahead of their Nov. 15 deadline to report full results to the State Board of Elections.
Students Receive a Carve Out on Residency Requirements
—Public records requests show that hundreds of students, if not thousands, were allowed to ignore residency requirements on election day to cast a provisional SDR ballot. This happened in many localities with large student populations.
—According to one HAVA complaint filed in Chesterfield County, more than 900 students entered one precinct on Election Day, which overwhelmed the Officers of Election (OOE).
—Although the complaint states the precinct chief and officers handled the deluge well, it also said student voters were entering out-of-state addresses on their SDR applications.
—The complaint, filed by Chesterfield Elections Officer Doug Roberts from his observations, said at least 299 Virginia State University (VSU) students were allowed to use an office address (1 Hayden Drive) to register and cast a provisional SDR ballot, according to maintenance records.
—Voter-list maintenance records have since shown that zip codes of some defective SDR registration records were edited and/or changed.
Virginia’s statute on residency requirements states: "Residence," "residency," or "resident" for all purposes of qualification to register and vote means and requires both domicile and a place of abode.
Roberts’ complaint continued:
“Then someone started telling them what address to use, rather than asking them to put the address where they now reside (and not their home address) which would have been the better instruction.
“The practice of telling them what address to use without the dorm and room number made it easier for folks who did not live at VSU to know what address to enter so they would get to vote.
“Five voters told the EO they were not currently students but they were ‘told by others’ they could vote at the precinct.”
Roberts’ complaint explained: if their residential address – their domicile, was outside the precinct, they were not allowed to vote there on Election Day.
The complaint continued:
“Realizing they would not be able to cast a ballot unless they entered a VSU address on their provisional voter paperwork, they insisted that a non-residential address (1 Hayden Dr, VSU 23806) address was their home.
“The process completely nullified any opportunity to challenge whether voters who did not actually live in the precinct were eligible to vote in the precinct. It turns out that many of them were not students, but claimed a non-residential address on their form to cast a ballot at Ettrick precinct 301.”
In an email after the complaint to the Dept. of Elections was “found not to allege a HAVA violation," Chesterfield General Registrar Missy Vera wrote:
“We share your concern about the same-day registrations and acknowledge that this process needs to be reassessed.
“We are committed to finding a solution that ensures the integrity of voting in Chesterfield County. Additionally, we are quite concerned about the same-day registrations, where voters have submitted applications to immediately change their registration—either back to their previous address or to a new address outside the county.
“This has made it challenging to assign accurate voter credit following the election.”
Vira also called for a “deep dive into the process for same-day registrations across the Commonwealth of VA, along with a thorough review of its requirements to ensure that votes are eligible to count.”
She added: “It may need to be brought to the General Assembly for a change in legislation.”
Maintenance Records Show Spike in ‘Duplicate’ Registrations
—According to January’s monthly voter-maintenance records from the Dept. of Elections, which includes December and November, just over 134,000 registrations are designated “administrative duplicate match” since the 2024 election.
—Chesterfield County logged over 5,000 SDR provisional ballots during the 2024 General Election.
—As of January, maintenance records show over 3,000 registrations logged on Nov. 6th, the day after Election Day, as “administrative duplicate matches.” This indicates they were already registered when they filled out SDR paperwork.
--According to Dept. of Elections’ monthly maintenance records, Fairfax County shows 9004 registrations identified as “administrative duplicate match” on Nov. 6th alone, the day after Election Day.
—Did these registrations end up casting more than one ballot? Provisional logs and official records are unclear at this point.
—The monthly maintenance records can also reflect other transactions that can skew these numbers. However, the “duplicate” trend clearly correlates with SDR surges.
—EPEC has been able to review a handful of provisional logs from localities that reviewed thousands of SDR applications. They show a high percentage of SDRs approved, over 90% in some cases.
—Only when the official Voter History List (VHL) is released, expected in late January, will Virginia know which SDRs voted in the 2024 General Election.
--It is still unclear why Dept. of Elections’ (ELECT) Client Services provides an unofficial record of early voting (Daily Absentee List) but does not provide a similar feed of unofficial Election Day stats that provide clarity before elections are certified.
—For now, ELECT provides only summary data on its website and a JSON data feed on election night. EPEC Team has documented issues with the feed here.
—Registrars are stating privately, anonymously, and publicly they would like to see the Virginia Assembly make SDR changes to ensure a consistent application of election statutes.
Virginia’s General Assembly is expected to convene for business the week of Jan. 13 after a water outage in the Richmond area caused a shortened opening session on the 8th. Lawmakers are preparing election-related bills among their legislative agenda.
They are also reportedly getting an earful about the impact of SDR chaos, lack of uniform application of election statutes, and what they intend to do about it. #
—Article was updated to correct the spelling of Missy Vera.
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Thank you for confirming some of our worst fears about the inadvisability of election-day registration. It is well-documented and vital and deserves to be shared widely.