Efforts to study Virginia’s annual elections are still alive in Richmond – WVTF

Should Virginia abandon the long -standing practice of selecting the General Assembly and governor of the odd year election?

The first elections for the odd year in Virginia were in 1851, after a new state constitution was approved and members of the chamber were elected at a two -year term. Previously, the members of the Chamber had one -year conditions and the voters elected members every year.

Now the leader of the majority in the Senate Scott Sourail says that modern voters are sick and tired of voting every year.

“Having elections every year in Virginia, many of us believe that it contributes to the voter apathy, the voters have simply worn out of constantly subordinate to election information,” he says. “As you all know, when we tend to be on the newsletter in this chamber, they tend to be 50% of what they are when we have a presidential election.”

Republicans are skeptical.

“I do not understand why we would like the state elections to be guided by the outcome of the federal elections,” says Senate Republican leader Ryan McDougal. “Let us stand on what we do here in Virginia and formulate it on the citizens of the community.”

Souril has a resolution that would create a study to find out if Virginia should give up this strange tradition and how the transition will happen. This resolution adopted the Senate on Wednesday afternoon and a similar resolution is considered in the chamber.

This report provided by Virginia’s public radiobecame possible with the support of Virginia Education AssociationS