About 46% of Henrico's registered voters already have cast their ballots

Nearly 106,000 of Henrico’s 231,000 registered voters – or about 46% – already have cast their ballots in tomorrow’s election, Henrico Registrar Mark Coakley told the Citizen.

Of those who have voted already, 68,808 did so in person and another 37,155 returned their absentee ballots by mail, in person or by drop-box. Another 10,420 requested absentee ballots but hadn’t yet returned them as of this morning. They’ll have until tomorrow at 7 p.m to return them in person, or they may mail them tomorrow instead.

In total, just about half of the county’s registered voters submitted or requested absentee ballots. The percentage of voters in each of the county’s five magisterial districts who did so ranged from 49% (in the Varina District) to 53% (in the Three Chopt District).

Thirty-four percent of the registered voters in the Varina District already have voted in person – the highest such percentage of any of the five districts. The Tuckahoe District (27%) was lowest in that category.

The Three Chopt District had the highest percentage of voters who requested an absentee ballot by mail (25%), while the Varina District (15%) had the lowest such percentage.

The county’s overall turnout may fall just short of Coakley’s original projection that 85% of its registered voters would cast ballots, he said.

Four years ago, 74% of the county's electorate cast ballots in the presidential election, while a total of just more than 17,000 people voted absentee. (Virginia's General Assembly this year made it much easier for citizens to vote absentee, removing the requirement for an excuse to do so.)

Henrico has transitioned from a Republican stronghold to a dependable Democratic one – a reality that played itself out again in 2016, when a majority of voters in all five of the county's magisterial districts voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton over Republican Donald Trump. The closest outcome was in the Tuckahoe District, which Clinton won by just 22 votes among the nearly 32,600 cast there.

Democrats traditionally dominate the Fairfield and Varina districts; Clinton won both by a combined margin of more than 25,000 four years ago.