Campaigns are questions, and elections are answers. But sometimes those answers prompt more questions. Here are some questions Cardinal readers posed:
Did some people not vote on the constitutional amendments? Did others split their votes?
On the three amendments, I’m confused on how the different votes played out. When I read the results, it looks like more people were in support of the abortion amendment than the same-sex marriage or felon voting amendments. Lynchburg specifically voted yes to the first and no to the latter two. Could someone explain why this is the case? Did people vote yes to 1 and then leave 2 and 3 blank? Did people vote yes to 1 and then no to 2 and 3 (which seems surprising to me, but maybe it shouldn’t be). That would lead me to believe more Virginians are in support of abortion than they are of same-sex marriage, which I would have thought to be reversed. Not sure if there is an easy answer but I am very curious why the breakdown!
— Emily Pugsley, Lynchburg
Let’s start statewide and work our way down. Overall, yes, more Virginians voted for Amendment 1 (on reproductive rights) than they did for Amendment 2 (same-sex marriage) or Amendment 3 (restoration of rights).
These numbers remain unofficial as electoral boards work through provisional ballots and post-election mail ballots, but the numbers won’t change that much:
Amendment 1: 2,194,634 for, 1,318,461 against
Amendment 2: 2,037,969 for, 1,506,937 against
Amendment 3: 2,001,153 for, 1,536,997 against
And yes, Lynchburg was among 14 localities that voted yes on Amendment 1 but no on Amendment 2. The others: Accomack County, Charles City County, Danville, Emporia, Essex County, Frederick County, Greensville County, Isle of Wight County, Orange County, Salem, Surry County, Sussex County and Westmoreland County. I wrote more about this in a column earlier this week, pointing out that some localities backed Republican candidates but distinctly non-Republican positions on the amendments. (You can click through this slideshow to see how the map changed from amendment to amendment.)
Where Amendment 1 passed and failed. Data source: Department of Elections. 
Where this year’s Amendment 2 to repeal the ban on same-sex marriage passed and failed. Data source: Virginia Department of Elections. 
Where this year’s Amendment 3 on restoration of rights passed and failed. Data source: Virginia Department of Elections.
Why people felt the way they did is beyond my ability to answer, but at least 156,665 people who voted yes on Amendment 1 did not vote yes on Amendment 2.
And yes, some people left parts of the ballot blank. That’s typical; there’s always some ballot drop-off from the top of the ticket.
We’re still awaiting final numbers, but here’s what we know right now:
U.S. Senate race: 3,570,343 voters
Amendment 1: 3,513,095 voters
Amendment 2: 3,544,906 voters
Amendment 3: 3,538,150 voters
It’s possible, of course, that some people didn’t vote in the U.S. Senate race and just marked other races, but working from these numbers, then at least 57,248 people who voted in the Senate race didn’t vote on Amendment 1, 25,437 who voted in the Senate race didn’t vote on Amendment 2, and 32,193 who voted in the Senate race didn’t vote on Amendment 3.
Here’s a curiosity: While the “yes” side on Amendment 1 got the most votes of any of the amendments, fewer people voted on Amendment 1 than the other two amendments. That appears to be because some people who voted “no” on Amendments 2 and 3 simply didn’t vote on Amendment 1.
How did Powers fare compared to previous Democrats in the 9th District?
In the 9th District, how does the 33% of the vote attained by Joy Powers compare with the percentage of votes attained by previous challengers to Morgan Griffith?
— Sally Morgan, Washington County
Griffith first won the seat in 2010, which means he’s now faced eight reelection campaigns as the Republican incumbent in the 9th District. Here are the figures.
2012: Griffith 61.28%, Anthony Flaccavento 38.58%
2014: Griffith 72.15%, William Carr (I) 24.21%
2016: Griffith: 58.6%, Derek Kitts 28.3%
2018: Griffith 65.2%, Anthony Flaccavento 34.8%
2020: Griffith 94.0%, write-ins 6.0%
2022: Griffith: 73.2%, Taysha DeVaughan 26.5%
2024: Griffith: 75.2%, Karen Baker 27.3%
2026: Griffith: 65.96%, Joy Powers 33.84%
Let’s drop out Carr because he was an independent; there was no Democratic candidate in 2014. That means there have been six Democrats to challenge Griffith. Of those, Powers has the third-highest vote share; Flaccavento took more in his two bids.
Another way to look at elections is vote totals, not percentages. By that measure, Powers still ranks third, although what we really need to do to get a fair comparison is to only look at midterm elections. Baker drew more votes (105,970) two years ago, but that was a presidential year, when turnout is higher. Griffith has run in four midterm elections (2014, 2018, 2022, 2026). One of those years didn’t have a Democratic candidate, so that takes us down to just three. On that scale, Powers’ 99,484 is the highest of any midterm challenger. On the other hand, Griffith’s 193,390 votes are the most he’s gotten in a midterm election, too — up from the 182,207 he received four years ago during Joe Biden’s midterms.
Yes, you read that right: Even though this was obviously a bad year for Republicans nationally, the Republican congressman from Southwest Virginia got more votes than he did during the Biden midterms, which was a good year for Republicans. This is a function of higher turnout this year and a reminder that higher turnout doesn’t automatically favor one party or another: It depends on who turns out.
How many student voters were there?
This would apply to each congressional district that has a concentration of college students: How many students were registered and voted? What percentage were those of total vote? How many registered at the last minute and voted? Did they also vote in their real hometowns?
— Anabel Bowen, Albemarle County
Virginia allows college students to claim residency at their school and either register to vote there or, in the case of those already registered, move their registration. We don’t yet have final figures on these numbers. College students often wind up registering on Election Day; those ballots are cast as provisional ballots. Election officials are now in the process of verifying residency and so forth on all those, including making sure that someone didn’t also register in another locality. We know some general numbers: Charlottesville had 1,854 provisionals. Not all of those are college students, but the vast majority will be. We also know that Lynchburg had 1,236 same-day registrations from Liberty University students.
Charlottesville this year had 19,770 ballots cast — not counting provisionals and post-election mail ballots (which are usually statistically insignificant). If all those Charlottesville provisionals are deemed valid, they’d constitute 8.5% of the total votes in the city.
In Lynchburg, those same-day Liberty registrants would constitute 3.99% of the city’s electorate.
At the moment, we don’t have figures for other college towns but ideally will have them next week.
Do those college voters make a difference in the outcome? This year, no. In the 5th District, Republican John McGuire’s margin is too big for those student voters to make a difference; Democrat Tom Perriello was hoping it would be otherwise, but that’s not how things worked out. Nor will the Liberty voters make a difference in the city council race (won by three Democrats), although they may make a difference in the order of finish among the Republican contenders.
What civil rights got restored?
The voting rights constitutional amendment: There were four rights that governors restored: voting, jury duty, notary public and running for office. What happens with the other three?
— Carolyn Caywood, Virginia Beach
Amendment 3 restored all of them. The full language of the amendment that voters approved this week says that “every such person, upon release from incarceration for that felony conviction and without further action required of him, shall be invested with all political rights, including the right to vote.”
The phrase “all political rights” covers everything. The reference to the right to vote is included just for emphasis and clarity.
A reminder: Restoring the right to vote doesn’t automatically make someone a voter. People still have to register. In a column earlier this year, I tried to work through the math to figure out how many convicted felons actually do register and then vote. It’s all speculative, but the more math I did with known assumptions (such as registration rates for the general population), the lower the number became.
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