Some rural communities see weeks go by without any early voters in primary elections.

In last year’s primaries to nominate candidates for non-presidential offices on the November ballot, Virginia opened early voting on May 3. Not until more than two weeks later did the first voters in Covington cast their ballot — and those came by mail. Not until more than a month later, on June 6, did the first voter actually show up at the registrar’s office.

Even in the last week of early voting, normally the busiest time, only three voters in Covington went to the registrar’s office — and no mail ballots came in.

In all, Covington saw 25 days of early voting — out of 31 available — where not a single voter, in person or by mail, cast a ballot.

Covington saw more days of no-voting than any other locality in Virginia during last year’s primaries, but its experience was not unusual for a small community. Norton had 23 days with no voters, Highland County 21.

In 11 localities, more than half the days of early voting went by with no voting. To the three places above, add Alleghany County (19), Bristol (19), Emporia (19), Greensville County (19), Dickenson County (18), Lee County (18), Smyth County (17) and Buena Vista (16).

In 17 localities, the number of no-voting days in the primaries was in double digits. Throw in Richmond County (14), Craig County (13), Charles City County (12), Bland County (10), Galax (10) and Martinsville (10).

All these numbers come from the registrar’s offices, either directly or indirectly through the Department of Elections, as compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project.

The darker the county, the more days of no early voting it had in the June 2024 primaries.

It’s important to note that early voting in general elections in the fall is exceptionally popular. Americans like convenience, and that’s reflected in the growing popularity of early voting. I only found three localities that had any no-voting days in the fall — and that was just a single day apiece. Even Highland County, the least-populated locality in the state, had early voters every day. In last fall’s election, most Virginians — 51.6% — voted early in some way. In Falls Church, 73.8% of ballots were cast in some way other than by showing up at a polling place on the traditional election day. “Election Day” should be more properly called a “counting day” or a “reporting day.” It is increasingly a last-chance opportunity to cast a ballot for those who have, for whatever reason, waited until the deadline to get their ballot in.

Party primaries, though, are an entirely different matter. Voter turnout in primaries is always much lower. When there’s a low-interest primary (and some are more interesting than others), many rural areas wind up seeing many days with no voters — and, in some cases, taxpayers wind up footing the bill for extra staffing that might be legally required but winds up being unnecessary given the lack of interest.

I emailed registrars in Virginia’s 50 smallest localities (the biggest of those was Westmoreland County). Not all replied, but many did.

Some said they didn’t incur any extra expenses during early voting. “I can’t think of any extra costs,” said Gwyn Carlton of Norton. “We would be open anyway.”

Her answer was echoed by multiple registrars. Some, though, said they did run up “extra” expenses for increased staffing during early voting periods — $3,380 in Dickenson County, $3,410 plus payroll taxes in Middlesex County, $3,875 in Galax.

One reason for the difference is that some localities don’t have a full-time deputy registrar but, by law, need one when voting is in progress. David Phipps, the registrar in Galax, sent this explanation: “Per § 24.2-112, my locality meets the requirement that ‘… Any county or city whose population is 15,500 or less shall have at least one substitute registrar who is able to take over the duties of the general registrar in an emergency and who shall assist the general registrar when he requests.’” During last year’s primary, Galax had 10 days with no voters but needed to meet the legal requirement for staffing anyway.

Not surprisingly, some registrars in small localities are not particularly happy with those expenses associated with early voting, especially given how light the vote turns out to be in primaries — and the fact that localities pay those expenses, not the state. “Unfortunately elections are unfunded mandates for the most part,” said Kayla Deel, the registrar in Dickenson County.

Phipps in Galax said, “It would be of benefit to the localities if the Early Voting period for a primary is reduced.”

Lindsey Williams, the registrar in Radford, went further. She’d like to see early voting in general elections pushed back from mid-September to early October. “The biggest burden is the length of ‘Election Season,’ in my opinion,” she said. The ballot isn’t formalized until early September. Last year, local offices had to submit copies of their ballots to the state by Sept. 9 to get them approved — and then had to print those ballots in time for early voting to begin 11 days later. “The timeline is so tight to get ballots approved and into the hands of the General Registrars to mail out,” Williams said. “My printer worked around the clock through the weekend last September to ensure that everyone got their ballots by the start of Early Voting.”

Virginia has one of the longest voting periods in the country — only two states have a longer early-voting period, by a single day. The length of early voting is not as partisan as you might think. The two states that set early voting to begin 46 days before the election are blue Minnesota and red South Dakota. Joining Virginia at 45 days are quite red Mississippi and quite blue Vermont. In Virginia, Democrats were the ones who gave us an early voting period of this length, while Republicans have been keen to shorten it. During the past session, state Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, introduced a bill to reduce early voting to 14 days. That bill died in a Senate committee on a party-line vote.

Unfortunately for those who would like to see a shorter period of early voting, reducing that voting window looks like voter suppression, even if that’s not the intent. “You’ve got these poor registrars trying to keep ’em staffed,” Peake told me. “It’s a huge waste of money.”

You can decide for yourself whether the figures above are huge or not, but it’s undeniably true that in primary elections, not many people in some small localities are voting early. This is particularly true in Southwest Virginia, partly because of population and partly because of politics. Republicans have embraced early voting with less enthusiasm than Democrats. Last year, there were no Democratic primaries in Southwest Virginia, so the only thing on the June ballot was the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. There were five candidates, but none were well-known and participation was relatively light — 273,307 voters statewide, down from the 304,518 in the 2018 Republican Senate primary and down from the 493,535 in the 1996 Republican Senate primary.

Lee County is one of the most solidly Republican counties in the state, casting almost 86% of its votes for Donald Trump and other Republican candidates. In the June Senate primary, though, a full 12 days went by before two voters showed up in Jonesville to cast ballots — and the first mail ballots didn’t arrive until 14 days after early voting had opened.

In Smyth County, an 80% Republican county, nobody voted until 15 days after early voting opened — when a single mail ballot arrived. Not until more than a month after early voting opened (34 days if you want to be precise) did any actual voters go into the registrar’s office in Marion to cast ballots. I tried to ask the legislators most directly involved in voting issues, the chairs of the Privileges and Elections Committees in each chamber of the General Assembly, about these numbers and whether they felt the state should be footing the bill. Neither replied. I also asked the chairs of both major parties; only Peake, who now leads the Republican Party, replied.

Two weeks from today, on May 2, early voting begins for this June’s primaries. This year, there will be a lot more on the ballot. Democrats have contested statewide nominations for lieutenant governor and attorney general; Republicans have a contested nomination for lieutenant governor. We also have Republican primaries for House of Delegates in a Southwest Virginia district that covers some of those localities that had such low early voting last year — including Smyth County. There also are Republican primaries for boards of supervisor nominations in nine counties — including Craig County, the fourth least-populated county in the state. (You can see who’s running on our Voter Guide.)

We’ll no doubt see more early participation this year because of all those factors. I can think of at least three questions to ask:

Should the early voting period for primaries be the same as or shorter than the period for general elections?

What should that voting period be for either?

And one that I know would make many rural registrars happy:

Should the state cover the expense for those primaries?

Want to weigh in on those questions? You can do so here.