Virginia’s 11th Congressional District Republican Committee is launching an experiment to register more Republicans for the permanent absentee ballot list. The committee’s stated goal is to help Republicans win more elections so they can change Virginia’s early voting laws.
According to the committee’s announcement, the experiment, done in conjunction with the Republican Party of Virginia, will test different messages, mediums and repetition levels to determine what most effectively motivates Republicans to sign up.
The project will consist of 54,000 pieces of mail and 27,000 text messages targeting Republicans in Fairfax County who have yet to register for the permanent absentee ballot list.
Democrats passed a law in 2020 allowing for no-excuse absentee voting and 45 days of early voting. Republicans opposed it at the time.
Republicans still say they do not like early or absentee voting, and they stand by that, but the 11th District Republican Committee says they plan to do as much as possible under the current law to help them win and change the rules back to how they want them to be.
“As a rule, we Republicans don’t like Early Voting or Absentee voting by mail,” said the committee’s chairwoman, Rosie Oakley, in a written statement. “However, current VA law allows 45 days of early voting and no reason is required to vote by mail. We won’t be able to change election law until Republicans have control of all three branches of the state legislature, and that can’t happen until 2027 when the VA State Senate runs for reelection. In the meantime, the decision has been made to try and encourage ‘low propensity’ Republican voters to sign up for Permanent Absentee Ballots (PABS). These are voters who would likely vote Republican, but don’t vote consistently. Signing up for a Permanent Absentee Ballot would make it convenient for them to vote every year.”
Matt Braynard is in charge of managing the project for the committee.
“I’m looking forward to sharing the results of this project because Republicans throughout the commonwealth — and across the country — can learn from what we discover,” he said. “Democrats in the 11th Congressional District are twice as likely to be registered for the permanent absentee ballot list, and this and future projects informed by what we discover here will help us close the gap so we can flip this district and Fairfax County from blue to red.”