Is It Time for Virginia to Stop Holding Elections Every Year? Lawmakers Are Taking a Serious Look

In a year when Virginia voters will choose their next governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and all 100 members of the House of Delegates, a little-noticed legislative panel is asking a potentially seismic question: Should the state stop voting every year?

The Joint Subcommittee to Study the Consolidation and Scheduling of General Elections met for the first time last week to begin exploring whether Virginia — one of just a handful of states with statewide elections in odd-numbered years — should sync up with the federal calendar and move all general elections to even-numbered years.

On the surface, the idea may seem like a bureaucratic scheduling tweak. But in practice, it would touch nearly every aspect of Virginia politics, from voter turnout and local governance to campaign finance and the nationalization of state issues. It could also spell the end of one of the commonwealth’s most distinctive — and some say outdated — political traditions.

“There’s a ton of information to digest, a ton of things to consider,” said state Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, who chairs the bipartisan panel. “But at the end of the day, I think there’s two things that we should care about: turnout in elections and people’s voices, right? And how do we maximize that?”

A state that votes every year

Virginia’s political calendar is famously relentless. This November, voters will select a new governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and all 100 House of Delegates seats will be on the ballot.

In 2026, Virginians will vote for 11 congressional representatives and a U.S. senator. Then in 2027, the entire state Senate and House of Delegates will be on the ballot again. In 2028, it’s back to federal races, including the presidency.

This yearly rhythm has its roots in Virginia’s early political history. Brooks Braun, senior attorney with the Division of Legislative Services, told the subcommittee that elections in the 18th and 19th centuries were frequent but limited in scope — delegates were elected annually, but governors were selected by the legislature and voting rights were restricted to property-owning white men.

“Not unlike today, frequent elections were the norm,” Braun said. “The franchise was also very limited, only property-owning white males could vote and voting was done via voicing and no ballots.”

The federal government standardized federal elections in 1845, scheduling them for the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of even-numbered years.

But Virginia never fully aligned itself with that model. Following the Civil War, elections were imposed by federal authorities in ways that entrenched an off-year pattern. Later, the segregationist Byrd Machine maintained the off-year system as a means of limiting voter participation and holding onto power.

“It’s easier to maintain power in circumstances where you’re voting year by year and you have a machine,” said Henry Chambers, a professor of law at the University of Richmond who has studied the intersection of voting rights and political structure.

National attention, national money

The off-year elections have made Virginia an outsized political bellwether. Only two states — Virginia and New Jersey — elect their governors the year after a presidential election, drawing national media coverage and millions in campaign contributions as the nation looks for signs of political momentum.

“Virginia now has a unique role in the U.S. electoral landscape because of when we have our gubernatorial election,” said veteran political analyst Bob Holsworth. “Virginia’s electoral cycle has enhanced the visibility and importance of the commonwealth’s gubernatorial election. Everybody’s looking at this nationally.”

Holsworth noted that former governors like Terry McAuliffe and Tim Kaine parlayed their victories into national roles, and Virginia’s races have repeatedly offered early clues about changing voter moods.

“Shifting to an even-numbered electoral cycle would diminish the distinctiveness of the Virginia governor’s race,” he warned.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, who sponsored the legislation that created the subcommittee, sees that visibility as a double-edged sword. He argued that Virginia’s status as a political canary in the coal mine has come at the cost of overexposure and hyper-partisan spending.

“People are kind of sick of politics right now, and sick of elections,” he said. “We have a lot of issues to talk about. We’ve got to talk about turnout effects, campaign finance, political implications … The logistics of trying to change election dates for thousands of elections in Virginia is extraordinarily complicated.”

Surovell added: “The increase in money has been astonishing. People are willing to spend $12 million to figure out who gets an $18,000 job. That’s crazy.”

Would turnout improve?

For those supporting consolidation, boosting voter turnout is the most compelling argument.

“If turnout is your only consideration or your major consideration, you stuff everything into a presidential year,” Holsworth said. “Because you’re going to go from 40% turnout to 70% turnout.”

Holsworth provided historical context: Gubernatorial election years have seen a steady rise in participation, from 40.4% in 2009 to nearly 55% in 2021, according to Virginia Department of Elections data. But turnout in legislative-only years still lags, hovering just above 40%.

Still, the impact of changing the calendar isn’t cut and dry. Holsworth noted that while presidential elections drive turnout, there’s no guarantee that moving a gubernatorial race to a midterm year would significantly change participation rates.

Chambers echoed the complexity, warning that a high-turnout “wave election” in a presidential year could sweep both federal and state governments in one political direction — only to provoke a backlash in the next cycle.

“It’s not clear that you want a wave election to change Virginia state government and federal government for four years,” Chambers said. “You could be in for two to four years of what you may be surprised that you voted for.”

The “Lollapalooza Ballot”

A consolidated ballot may also be harder for voters to navigate.

“There may be reasons to keep state offices separate from federal offices,” Chambers told lawmakers. “You may well have folks who lose the thread … on the differences between electing state officials and electing federal officials.”

The result, he said, could be a “true Lollapalooza of an election,” where voters face a ballot that includes the president, governor, congressional seats, General Assembly races, and more.

Del. Rob Bloxom of Accomack, a rare Republican voice at the panel’s first meeting, worried that national races could drown out local campaigns and drive up the cost of elections.

“They should be talking about potholes, the tree trimming — not immigration or abortion,” he said of candidates for local office. “It ruins some of the local discourse.”

He noted that a previous effort by Democrats to move local elections from May to November had made those contests more expensive and less visible.

“They go into November, and they get lost,” Bloxom said. “Those elections are competing for costs with us. It creates higher demand and makes elections cost more.”

Following the lead — or breaking the mold?

Virginia isn’t alone in its off-year schedule, but it’s part of a dwindling club.

Braun cited New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky as other states that elect statewide officials in odd-numbered years. West Virginia, he noted, recently passed legislation to consolidate its municipal elections with even-year federal contests by 2032.

Some of those states have debated changes similar to Virginia’s current effort but have yet to act. Kentucky, for example, sees perennial proposals to move its gubernatorial elections to presidential years — but none have passed.

Virginia itself last considered the question in 1979, when a study commission similar to today’s looked at consolidating election dates but issued no final report. Nearly half a century later, the conversation has returned.

And with it, concerns about how consolidation could alter the dynamics of power.

Chambers warned that elections conducted without strong voting rights protections could be ripe for manipulation.

“When you have a higher-stakes election, you may have more of a likelihood of shenanigans,” he said. “And without a federal Voting Rights Act there to protect quickly … you could be done with the election before you can respond to the behavior that’s going on.”

What comes next?

VanValkenburg said the subcommittee’s work this year will be focused on gathering input, hearing from legal and political experts and understanding the consequences of any potential overhaul. In 2026, the panel is expected to begin crafting legislation, including possible constitutional amendments.

“These four meetings this year are going to be informational meetings,” he said. “Next year is going to be more about writing code, writing amendments, figuring out kind of how we want to go about this.”

If the General Assembly approves a plan in 2026, it would have to pass the legislature again in 2027 before voters weigh in via a ballot referendum. The earliest a consolidated election system could be implemented would be 2029, with some local offices not shifting to the new cycle until 2040.

And while the idea of consolidating elections may lack the drama of a campaign-season scandal, its long-term consequences could be more profound.

“My take is part of the issue for us is, because we’ve done it this way before, I think we have a rhythm and we’re used to it,” Chambers said. “Now, is that a good thing? Not necessarily. And do I think that Virginians would absolutely adapt? No doubt.”

As Holsworth put it: “There’s just enormous attention (on Virginia elections) … and shifting that would change how the rest of the country sees us, and how we see ourselves.”

Whether that’s a change Virginia is ready to make — or willing to risk — remains to be seen.

by Markus Schmidt, Virginia Mercury

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