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28K register to vote in Virginia after judge extends deadline

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lawThe Virginia Department of Elections reported that citizens of the Commonwealth submitted nearly 28,000 voter registration applications online following a judge’s order on Thursday to extend the registration deadline. The final number of applications submitted during the extended registration period will be higher when in-person and mailed voter registration applications are processed in the coming days.

A federal judge on Thursday extended the deadline for Virginia citizens to register to vote or update their voter registration through Friday, October 21. As of the 11:59 p.m. deadline for online registration, 27,952 voter registration applications had been submitted since the court order. In-person registrations were accepted at local general registrars’ offices and designated state agencies, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles or Department of Social Services. Citizens also could register via mail, which had to be postmarked on or before October 21.

“As the last 36 hours shows, we have had an overwhelming demand from voters this year to register to vote or to update their registration status, and we are dedicated to ensuring that every eligible Virginian has the opportunity to participate in the November election,” said Department of Elections Commissioner Edgardo Cortés. “This is the first presidential election in which voters have been able to register or update their records online, and at times our technology has had a difficult time keeping up with this unprecedented demand. However, I am confident that the steps we have taken to improve the system for our voters and our dedicated local registrars will result in a positive experience for voters on November 8.”

The Department has made important functionality improvements to the statewide voter registration system, VERIS, to help it keep up with the heavy demand from voters. It added additional memory capacity to the primary server, added a secondary database server for information such as polling locations to ease the demand on VERIS, made other performance improvements, and added a custom error page that provided voters information on other ways to register or update their records.

Virginians may check their voter registration status, find their polling location, check what is on their ballot, and apply for an absentee ballot on the Department’s Citizen Portal at vote.virginia.gov. Allow several days after submitting a registration application for the status to appear on the portal.

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