Absentee voting; no-excuse, in-person, beginning on second Saturday immediately preceding election. (SB1026)

I see no reason why absentee voting should have restrictions. It is all of our best interests to have as many eligible voters vote as possible. This should just be considered early voting. Given available parking, voting machines, voting day workers and other issues, the more people who vote early the better. We need to move to online voting, but given the lack of and expense now for upgraded technology, this is one easy step to improving voter turnout. You could ask for volunteers or even pay day workers to help in registrars' offices on early voting days, just like on voting days now. We could make this happen! I support this bill. Voter in Chesterfield county.

I absolutely support no excuse absentee voting. Requiring an excuse is meant to suppress voting and removing this hurdle will only expand the vote.

The ACLU of VA strongly supports this bill.

This bill is a good thing.

HOWEVER -- it's another example of an unfunded mandate on localities.

I am in a small county with only 9,000 voters and 5 polling places. Now, we will have to open another polling place to accommodate early voting. This will cost us:
-- New voting machines: $12,000
-- New electronic pollbooks ($2,700)
-- Salaries for poll workers: Approx $600 per day X 7 days = $4,200
-- Signs and other miscellaneous for the new polling place: $500

Remember -- in my county we will need only one early polling place. It CANNOT be in the registrar's office, which is too small already. So, we have to find a building centrally located in tne county -- that has parking, handicapped access, place to lock up the voting machines at night, restrooms, etc.

In the case of, say, Fairfax County with 800,000 registered voters, we are talking about several early voting places that will cost some real money. The State needs to kick in a lot of financial assistance to the localities.