Virginia: Limits on Voter Eligibility Challenges

Virginia does not allow for challenges to a voter’s eligibility on Election Day. Virginia allows challenges before and during early voting but with strict limitations. Virginia’s strong voter protections include requiring challenges to be filed in court and prohibiting challenges on the basis that a voter has moved.

Outside of the voting period, challenges are allowed only if three registered voters from the same county or city file a petition in court.

• Virginia changed its law in 2026¹ to repeal the ability of an individual voter to challenge another voter’s registration and to only allow challenges when three registered voters from the same county or city as the challenged voter file a petition with the circuit court of the county or city in which they are registered.²
• Challenges are prohibited if the basis for the challenge is that the voter moved, but are permissible as to any other voter registration qualification.³
• The petitioner must provide the challenged voter 15 days’ notice unless otherwise ordered by the court. The court must hear the challenge promptly and before other cases. Appeals must be brought within seven days of the court’s ruling.⁴
• If a voter’s registration is not challenged within six months of their registration, state law conclusively presumes—in any proceeding about that person’s right to be registered—that the voter met all procedural requirements when the voter applied.⁵

Challengers who make false, material statements may be liable for a felony.

• A person may be charged with election fraud and a Class 5 felony if the person willfully makes a "false material statement or entry . . . in any statement, form, or report required by [the Elections Code].”⁶

Federal law prohibits systematic removals of voters within 90 days of an election and ensures that almost no challenge should result in the immediate removal of a voter from the voter rolls.

The National Voter Registration Act further limits when and how voters can be removed from the rolls. Under the act, states and counties are permitted to remove a voter in just five circumstances: 

• If the voter requests the change
• If state law requires removal for a criminal conviction or mental incapacity
• For the death of the voter
• If the voter confirms a change of residence in writing and 
• Based on other evidence of a change of residence, but only after the state sends a notice and the voter both fails to respond and fails to vote in the next two federal general elections.⁷

These restrictions apply regardless of whether county boards of elections are conducting their own list maintenance or responding to challenges. 

The act also prohibits the systematic removal of voters within 90 days of a federal election.⁸ According to guidance from the U.S Department of Justice, “This 90-day deadline applies to State list maintenance verification activities such as general mailings and door-to-door canvasses. This deadline also applies to list maintenance programs based on third-party challenges derived from any large, computerized data-matching process.”⁹

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Voters in Virginia have the right to vote free from intimidation under federal and state law. Baseless challenges to a voter’s eligibility can harass and intimidate the voter being challenged, as well as other voters waiting to vote at the polls. More information on the federal and state laws that protect Virginia voters from intimidation can be found here.

If voters discover they’ve been mistakenly removed from the rolls, they can re-register and vote at the offices of the general registrar during early voting and at their polling place on Election Day.¹⁰ More information on same day registration and voting can be found here.