CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – New Albemarle County registrar Jonell McFadden was sworn into the post Tuesday morning, on a busy Election Day.
Albemarle County and Charlottesville city officials reported strong turnout numbers for the morning, on top of robust early voting totals.
McFadden told Cville Right Now, out of more than 85,068 active registered voters, 7,296 turned out by 10 a.m, which is nearly 8.6%.
At the Woodbrook polling site, for example, 575 voters had turned out before noon.
In Charlottesville, with 32,766 active registered voters, the 9 a.m. turnout was 1,914, which is 5.8%.
Albemarle County had 17,862 early in-person voters with 5.037 mail-in, and 834 drop box ballots received.
Charlottesville Registrar Taylor Yowell told Cville Right Now there had been 6,335 early in-person voters, plus an additional 1,654 mail-in and drop box ballots received.
With a race for Governor between Democrat Abigail Spanberger and Republican Winsome Earle-Sears atop the ballot, turnout was expected to be high on Tuesday.
State Elections Commissioner Susan Beals held a morning briefing but did not have a morning turnout total. She there are 6.3-million registered voters in Virginia.
As of today, a total of 1,596,000 absentee ballots have been requested, and as of Nov. 1, 1.4-million Virginians had voted through early voting.
That includes 1.1-million who voted early in-person, and 300,000 returned by mail.
Statewide, Beals reported only one precinct issue, in the City of Newport News.
Beals said there was an emergency polling place change there over the weekend after a vehicle ran through the Ivy Farm Community Faith Church Saturday, which is supposed to be Precinct 316.
The registrar’s office had to make an emergency polling place change over the weekend to the South Morrison Family Education Center.
Following the process outlines by the Virginia Department of Elections, Beals said the Newport News registrar’s office has posted at the original polling location information for voters on where they need to go, have given out information through media outlets, and a deputy sheriff was placed at the site all day Election Day with the lights on to hand out informational notices to all voters who arrived at the original location.
Beals covered information about mail-in ballots reminding anyone submitting them it must be postmarked by Election Day, and received by Friday at noon at the registrar’s office.
“If you have not already mailed your ballot, there are a couple of ways you can return it,” Beals said. “One, you can take to the post office take it to the post office, but we highly encourage taking it inside the post office and get a hand stamped postmark, and we would also ask you not put it in the blue box outside the post office. Alternatively, you can take it to your general registrar’s office and drop it off there, or you can drop it off at a polling location in your locality.”
