Joint subcommittee studying even-year elections meets for first time

Yahoo

22-07-2025

RICHMOND — A joint legislative subcommittee is studying what it would mean to move all of Virginia's elections to even years.
The subcommittee met at the General Assembly building Tuesday for the first of four discussions this summer and fall.
It's largely by historical fluke that Virginia has an election every year, according to legislative services senior attorney Brooks Braun.
In 1868, Virginia, then under U.S. military control, enacted a new constitution that abolished slavery, provided for universal male suffrage and established a uniform November date for general elections. But arguments over provisions that would disenfranchise former Confederates delayed the ratification election, planned for later that year.
Then-President Ulysses Grant ordered an election in 1869. The constitution — excluding the Confederate disenfranchisement clauses — was ratified by referendum, and Virginia also elected its first Reconstruction-era governor and legislature. The commonwealth has held odd-year elections ever since.
Arguments in favor of election consolidation to even years cite reduced costs and that voter turnout for state and local elections would be drastically improved.
'If turnout is your only consideration, or your major consideration, you stuff everything into a presidential year,' said political analyst Bob Holsworth during Tuesday's presentations.
You can think of Virginia as having four separate electorates, presenters said. The first group votes in presidential elections, over the past 15 years, consistently accounts for 70 to 75% of the population. The second group, voting in presidential midterm elections, has seen improved turnout since 2014 and includes between 40 and 60% of the population. The third group votes in Virginia's gubernatorial and House of Delegates elections every four years the year after the presidential election and is made up of around 40 to 55% of the population. The last group, voting in midterm gubernatorial elections, which includes House of Delegates and state Senate elections, has the worst voter turnout, with between 29 and 42% of the vote.
Consolidating elections does result in better turnout, but it also means that local candidates must compete with federal or state candidates for attention and dollars. In Hampton Roads, following a 2021 law that meant local elections that historically held in May were moved to November, local candidates said it was hard to be heard over the noise of the presidential race, if voters knew there was a back half of the ballot at all.
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'I have 17 incorporated towns (in my district) on the Eastern Shore, so you're talking about 200 to 500 people, you're talking about posters, just meeting your neighbor and asking them to vote,' Del. Rob Bloxom, R-Mappsville, said. 'They should be talking about the potholes, the tree trimming, the ditch maintenance, not national issues, not immigration, not pro-life. They'll never vote on any of that.'
Changing Virginia's elections to occur solely in even years would not be a simple process, Braun, the legislative services attorney, said.
Virginia's constitution does not mandate odd year elections for state office, but it does specify term lengths and when they start. To get on an even-year schedule, the governor, for example would need to serve either a three or five-year term. The constitution would need to be amended to allow for one-time shortened or lengthened terms for the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, House of Delegates members, state senators and other constitutional officers like sheriffs and commonwealth's attorneys.
To make the change, a constitutional amendment would have to be proposed by the subcommittee in the next legislative session and then subsequently pass the lengthy ratification process. Braun modeled a timeline in which the first election for statewide offices and the entire legislature would be serving a regular term would be in 2034. That's assuming that the governor's term was temporarily reduced to three years instead of five.
After 12 election cycles, in 2041, the city clerk of court position would finally be back to its regularly-scheduled eight-year term and consolidation would be complete.
The joint subcommittee will meet again this Thursday to discuss how campaign finance would be affected.
Kate Seltzer, [e-mail], [phone]
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