Skip Navigation
Resource

Virginia: Limits on Voter Eligibility Challenges

This resource details state and federal laws that guard voters against unfounded challenges to their eligibility.

Last Updated: September 23, 2024
Published: June 10, 2024
View the entire Limits on Voter Eligibility Challenges series

Virginia, like most states, allows private individuals to challenge another person’s eligibility to vote. This resource details state and federal laws that govern this process and protect registered voters from baseless challenges. Virginia’s protections include a suspension of the challenge process in the two months before a general election and, during in-person voting, a requirement that challenged voters who sign an affirmation of eligibility are generally allowed to vote a regular ballot.

Virginia law allows for challenges before and during the voting period.

In addition to the notice and hearing requirements for challenges to a voter’s eligibility, 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 affirms 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.footnote16_c2pGDziFOYg31tsPV5CrtkICNKjuVU5xIMZ6UCP1WA_r886CUZo66NQ1652 U.S.C. § 20507(a)(3), (d).These restrictions apply regardless of whether county boards of elections are conducting their own list maintenance or responding to challenges.

•  •  •

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.footnote17_Km7e4FjLMIHdEiZ0VbFRCaiWeEqg5tHlxCHre2Wpy8g_qLdHGLk6pJbQ17Va. Code Ann. § 24.2–420.1.More information on same day registration and voting can be found here.

End Notes