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Privileges And Elections

Friday, January 30, 2026·36m·▶ Watch / Listen

The Virginia House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced a broad slate of election administration and campaign finance bills, including measures on voter roll maintenance, ballot certification, absentee ballot curing, and hand counting of ballots, with most contested bills passing on recurring 15-to-7 or 16-to-6 splits; two constitutional amendments were carried over to 2027 after being found not properly before the committee.

Key Actions

·HB 28 – Voter Roll Maintenance DeadlinesNo Vote

+ 17 more actions

Controversies

HB 968 – Specificity of 'team of election officials' language in the ballot duplication substitute

Delegate Cherry argued that the substitute's reference to 'a team of election officials representing both parties to prepare a duplicate copy' on line 26 was 'very vague' and asked whether the code should specify a number such as 2, 4, 8, or 12 members to ensure the process is done properly. Counsel responded that it is standard for the department to promulgate regulations on that question and that the code does not need to be too prescriptive.

+ 2 more controversies

Notable Quotes

“Quick question on the line 26 where we're talking about a team of election officials representing both parties to prepare a duplicate copy. Should we provide some specificity as to what that team looks like or is that enough to just say a team? Should we have 2, 4, 8, 12? It just seems very vague in terms of us putting code into make sure that this is done properly.”

Delegate Cherry — Delegate Cherry raised a concern about vague language in the HB 968 substitute governing the composition of election official teams tasked with duplicating ballots that cannot be fed into a machine.

+ 2 more quotes

Votes

Adopt substitute for HB 28Passed
Report HB 28 with substitute and refer to AppropriationsPassed
Adopt amendment for HB 78Passed
Report HB 78 with amendmentPassed
Report HB 773Passed
HB 774 / HB 968 [UNCLEAR] go by for the dayPassed
Adopt substitute for HB 968Passed
Report HB 968 with substitutePassed
Report HB 1321Passed
Report HB 1348Passed
Report HB 59Passed
Adopt amendment for HB 113Passed
Report HB 113 with amendmentPassed
Adopt substitute for HB 640Passed
Report HB 640 with substitutePassed
Report HB 1014Passed
Adopt substitute for HB 1244Passed
Report HB 1244 with substitutePassed
Carry over HJ 14 and HJ 45 to 2027 per Rule 22Passed
Report SB 6, SB 449, SJ1, SJ2 (block vote)Passed
Report SJ3Passed
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TranscriptPreview
Good morning. I called to order this meeting of House privileges and elections. If the clerk could please open the roll and members, show your presence. All right. Members, show your presence. Oh, everybody's here. Good morning. So today we are going to hear our subcommittee reports and then we have some Senate bills. So we will first start with the election administration subcommittee report. Chair Glass. Gratitude, Madam Chair. We'll start with House Bill 28. And I believe the member has a substitute. Do you want me to go ahead and report it first? No. Can I get her a motion on the substitute? So move. And I so move. So it's been moved. Improperly seconded that House Bill 28. We would pass the substitute. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? We have adopted the substitute. Okay. Well, House Bill 28 requires the Department of Elections to complete not later than 90 days prior to the date of a primary or general election, any program, for the purposes of which is to systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the ROTOR registration system. This restriction is not to be constructed to preclude one, the removal…
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