VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — People aren't voting the same way they used to.
According to the Virginia Public Access Project, more than 1 million of the state's registered voters have already cast their ballots. For the Hampton Roads region -- across the seven cities and including areas like Williamsburg and James City County -- roughly 200,000 early votes are already in.
13News Now reached out to VPAP, who told us they do not publicly comment on this raw information and allow the data "to speak" for itself. Because of the difference in circumstances (voting laws, COVID-19 pandemic), they discouraged pure comparisons between this year's election and previous gubernatorial races.
However, they did note if voter turnout is exactly the same as it was four years ago during the last gubernatorial race in 2017, this would mean one-third of the votes cast for this election are already in.
When it comes to the rate at which voters are voting early, data shows that across Virginia it's a rate of 192.1 per 1,000, translating to roughly 1-in-5 registered voters.
But all of this is likely to change, and exactly how is unclear. As of Sunday, the project found more than 100,000 ballots that have been mailed out have still not been reported as received yet.
Election officials told 13News Now that if you're still holding onto an absentee ballot, it'd be advantageous to drop it off directly at a registrar's office, as to avoid the risk of it not being received in time this Friday.
VPAP also says there is no clear connection between early voting and who will win the race.