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Henrico County retiree Dwayne Crewe, 66, casts his ballot at the Weinstein JCC.
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Frankie Johnson said she's been a poll worker at Chesterfield County's Islamic Center of Virginia for five years. “It’s important to help where you’re needed in your community," she said.
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Campaign volunteers chat outside of George Wythe High School in Richmond.
As five candidates vie for the Democratic nomination for governor, local election officials reported a slow primary election day at Richmond-area polling places.
The primary election was dominated by Democratic races for the most part, with Tuesday’s most high-profile primary contest seeing former Gov. Terry McAuliffe face off against current Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and General Assembly members Jennifer McClellan, Jennifer Carroll Foy and Lee Carter to determine who will challenge Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin in November. The Democratic nominations for lieutenant governor and attorney general are also up for grabs across the state. In addition to local races for seats in the Virginia House of Delegates, Tom Barbour challenges incumbent Colette McEachin for Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney while William Burnett and Antionette Irving compete to be the city’s next sheriff.
Across the board, election officials reported a slow and steady stream of voters on Tuesday morning and agreed that November general elections generally outshine June primaries.
“Normally, both parties have a primary on the same day, so then you have more people coming in,” said Cheryl Steveson, chief election officer at the Weinstein JCC polling station in Henrico County. “This one’s only a Democratic primary, so that’s half the people, and half the people voted [absentee], so it’s definitely going to be slower than normal.”
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, just over 15,000 absentee ballots were filed in Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield — an increase from early voting totals reported in 2017’s June primaries but a far cry from the more than 327,000 absentee ballots filed in last November’s presidential election election.
In addition to now-standard COVID precautions that included poll workers in face masks, clear plastic dividers and regularly sanitized polling stations, the Weinstein JCC polling location was set up under a tent in the JCC parking lot, a configuration Steveson said they’ve offered since the pandemic began. As of 10 a.m., Steveson said they’d received 75 in-person ballots with around 80 absentee ballots already cast.
Voters including local attorney Courtney Harris and her husband, Nick Harris, a disabled military veteran, pointed to issues like education and social justice as motivators to get out and vote on Tuesday.
“I think we were really paying attention, with the [candidates for] attorney general, how they handled the protests and how they handled the prosecution of officers that should’ve been prosecuted [as well as the ways] they’ve handled marijuana crime so far, unfairly prosecuting people they [shouldn’t have been] and things like that,” Harris said at the Islamic Center of Virginia in Chesterfield County. “The candidates weren’t too far off from each other this time, but there were just slight differences that mattered.”
