Absentee ballots hint at a higher voter turnout
2006-11-02
Source: Hampton Roads Pilot
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rss feedA hotly contested Senate race and an amendment on marriage have led tens of thousands of voters statewide to request absentee ballots before next week's election, an indicator that turnout could be abnormally high on Election Day.
"It sounds more like a presidential than a midterm election," said Virginia Garrett, Chesapeake's voter registrar.
Across the commonwealth, 102,852 people had requested absentee ballots as of Monday morning, said Jean Jensen, the secretary for the State Board of Elections. That's more than twice the number of absentee ballots received in 2002, when John Warner was re-elected to the Senate, and 35 percent more than requested during last year's gubernatorial race.
Garrett's office has received requests for 1,915 ballots, compared with the 763 absentee ballots the city received in 2002.
By Monday, Portsmouth's voter registrar's office had received 501 absentee ballots, registrar Deloris Overton said. In 2002, her office received 331 absentee votes.
And in Suffolk, the voter registrar's office was so swamped it needed to order more ballots.
The state deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail was Tuesday night. The deadline to request one in person is Saturday.
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