Collegiate Times

The House Privileges and Elections committee rejected legislation to allow no-excuse absentee voting during the General Assembly session, despite Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's support.

Kaine had hoped to allow all registered voters to cast absentee ballots in-person at registrar's offices during the 45-day absentee period, without having to provide reason for their absentee submission. Those submitting their ballots through the mail would still be required to meet one of the 17 requirements currently in place. "The governor believes that anyone for any reason can go and vote absentee," said Gordon Hickey, Kaine's press secretary.

Virginia is one of the more restrictive states when it comes to voting regulations. The aim of this bill was to give people with responsibilities an opportunity to vote, without having to stand in line on Election Day.

It is disappointing that a bill for no-excuse absentee voting was rejected. After such an exciting election season, when so many people came out and voted, opportunities to give people more time to vote should be pursued in the future.

Delegate Dave Nutter of the New River Valley acknowledged that he's heard that no-excuse absentee voting doesn't work effectively in some states where it's been implemented because if people are going to vote early, then they will likely vote for the incumbent without taking the time to get to know the competing candidate. We believe, however, that we should at least be given the opportunity to vote early if that is what works best for our individual schedules.

There should be some sort of system in place to allow for circumstances in which people want to vote early. Obviously this would become a problem if it ever became a serious substitute for regular voting -- if only in a logistical sense. However, spreading the voting out over a number of days would lessen the workload for local registrars and poll workers.

If Virginia were to have passed this bill, we would become the  27th state offering no-excuse absentee voting.

No-excuse absentee voting would especially help students, in particular those with a lot of free time, or those who know they will be busy on Election Day.

This sort of system would be very convenient, especially for on-campus students in Blacksburg who were forced to vote at St. Michael's Lutheran Church last November, which is considerably smaller than Blacksburg Elementary School, which was a lot closer and was less crowded on election day.

No-excuse absentee voting doesn't hurt anyone and would specifically help our community. Additionally, more people would be motivated to go out to the polls if they knew they could make time to vote at a point in time other than Election Day.

The editorial board is composed of David Grant, David Harries, Laurel Colella and Jenna Marson.