Ignore the disinformation. Virginia’s elections are secure.

Voter fraud is extremely rare, especially in Virginia where election officials have a high level of professionalism.

Virginia recently made headlines with Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order to codify “election security measures,” but there was just one problem – those measures were already in place. 

Virginia phased out touchscreen voting and started shifting to paper ballots in 2017; Youngkin’s  executive order on August 7 codified the use of paper ballots in Virginia. 

Despite Youngkin’s bluster about “illegal votes,” the truth is Virginia’s elections have proven safe and reliable for years. Voter fraud in US elections is extremely rare and many cases of alleged fraud are in fact mistakes by voters or administrators. 

“Virginians can be confident in our elections because election officials receive extensive training, including overseeing the security and custody of ballots and ensuring that election results are checked multiple times before the results are certified,” said Andrea Gaines, a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Elections. 

All this training contributes to a high-level of professionalism among Virginia election officials, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington in an interview with Dogwood. It also helps that Virginia has so many elections every year. 

“We have elections in Virginia all the time,” Farnsworth said. “Nobody gets rusty when it comes to the process of holding an election that is effective and credible.”