VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The Virginia Republican convention voting system is usually held under one roof. On Saturday, an estimated 54,000 republican delegates voted for their nominees across the state throughout various drive-up polling locations. Ten of those locations were placed in Hampton Roads.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Republican convention was unassembled across the state at 39 designated drive-up polling locations.
Old Dominion University Political Science Professor Jesse Richman explained how it works.
“Like a primary, it’s spread across the state but like a convention, it’s people who are picked by local party organization," said Richman.
Richman said this type of election is called ranked-choice voting. He explained how the system works.
“Those rankings are used to do instant runoffs, where if nobody gets a majority of the votes in the first round, on it goes. Candidates with the least votes... their supporters get reallocated based on the second choice and so forth," said Richman.
The GOP has a lot of candidates to choose from. On the ballot, seven people are running for Governor, six for Lieutenant Governor, and four are seeking to become the next Attorney General.
More than 50,000 votes will be hand-counted on Sunday. Richman said it could take a while before we know who earned a majority of the votes.
“With ranked-choice, you’re potentially going through these multiple times as you reallocate votes and so forth. This may take a little while. Not really sure how long it will take I think, but we’re looking at probably two, three days as this tabulation goes on," said Richman.
Richman explained after the votes are counted, Republicans focus on the state race. They're up against a major challenge, because Virginia has been blue for more than a decade.
Richman expects the Democratic Party to have an in-person convention when they vote for their candidates.