Voter Accessibility in Montgomery County; Early Voting for General Election Began Sept. 19

By Emily Dorsey, politics and government reporter

“Our board has historically been reactive instead of proactive in terms of establishing satellite voter facilities,” Board of Supervisors Chair April DeMotts (District G) said.

On Aug. 11, 2025, Montgomery County’s Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a draft ordinance for three voter satellite offices for the General Election. Those locations were the Blacksburg Community Center, Shawsville Middle School cafeteria and Auburn High School cafeteria. This proposed ordinance provided in-person voting locations for those living in eastern and southern Montgomery County. 

On Aug. 25, 2025, the Board of Supervisors adopted one location as a voter satellite office. Four out of seven supervisors were in favor of this ordinance. Supervisor Anthony Grafsky (District E), Vice Chair Steve Fijalkowski (District C) and Supervisor Todd King (District D) opposed the ordinance. 

From the conversations between supervisors regarding the ordinance, comments from citizens, the concept of equitable voting, previous changes in voting and more, voter accessibility in Montgomery County is not a topic to ignore. 

The state of Virginia has witnessed a lot of change over the past decade regarding voting. Taking effect July 1, 2020, Virginia required a 45-day early voting period. The Voting Rights Act of Virginia was passed in 2021 which brought about various changes with absentee ballot handling and voter discrimination. Other implementations include same-day registration at a citizen’s precinct and shortening the registration deadline from 21 to 10 days before a general or primary election. 

Providing satellite locations alongside mail-in ballots and early voting options is an extra guarantee that all citizens of Montgomery County have the necessary means to vote. 

The Board of Supervisors selected the Blacksburg Community Center as the singular satellite location. This site will provide in-person, early voting Oct. 25 and Nov. 1 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m, in addition to Election Day on Nov. 4.

The Blacksburg location was chosen for four main reasons: Blacksburg Transit’s (BT) accessibility, statistics from previous years, citizen opinion and staffing concerns. 

“We have numbers that we were able to look at from the last time we did satellite voting in Blacksburg,” DeMotts said. “Twenty-five percent of the early votes came from the Blacksburg satellite location.” 

There is a correlation between a satellite location in Blacksburg and the routes BT provides. The free, public bus runs along popular streets for commuters to easily access grocery stores, Virginia Tech (VT) campus or popular Christiansburg locations like the Office of Elections.  

Traveling to the Office of Elections from Virginia Tech or Blacksburg via the BT takes about 80 minutes round trip. This option may not be feasible for voters who have busy schedules, full-time jobs, extracurriculars and other responsibilities. Also, the BT doesn’t reach all parts of Montgomery County like Shawsville and Riner. 

Multiple citizens of Montgomery County spoke at the Aug. 25 Board of Supervisors meeting. 

“This is your opportunity, as a board, to again show that you care about excessive and  unnecessary spending of our tax dollars,” Wayman Pack, resident of Riner, said. “Let us all use the resources already available to us instead of spending taxpayers’ money on something that is not needed.”

“We need to not be afraid of who people are gonna vote for but give everybody ample opportunity to voice their vote,” Cindy Barton, resident of Montgomery County, said. “I think we can spend money on way worse things than making sure everybody has access to cast their vote.” 

DeMotts explained why there are no satellite locations in other parts of Montgomery County. 

“There was absolutely no demand,” DeMotts said. “Nobody from those areas emailed, called or came to the board and requested it. The two supervisors from those districts were also very clear they did not want satellite voting location in their district.”

Below are direct quotes from the Aug. 25 Board of Supervisors meeting:

“Voting couldn’t be easier than it is right now,” Fijalkowski said. “This proposal is unnecessary. I think it is a waste of tax payers dollars. It’s a burden on the registrar’s office and employees. Even if Shawsville had remained on the list, that doesn’t make it equitable.”

“I’m a big advocate for making sure [residents of Montgomery County] have access, but the flipside of that is how hard we worked our registrar’s office,” Supervisor Derek Kitts (District B) said. “I think it was 250, 260 hours of overtime … There are two sets of facts in this one. One is the workload, one is the access … Just cause one area of the county asked for it, and the other rest of the county doesn’t, we’ve got to be able to weigh that in.” 

According to Connie Viar, director of elections and general registrar, this election was different because Viar’s electoral board was under the opinion, Montgomery County did not need a satellite location. Hence, the decision fell to the Board of Supervisors.

Viar’s team tested the potential sites in Shawsville and Auburn – primarily for internet connectivity. Shawsville did not pass the test, which meant there was no reliable internet to run poll books. 

“Auburn tested perfect, but Supervisor King felt like it was not something his locality would be interested in,” Viar said. “The stats show that [voters] come [to the Christiansburg location].”

In previous years, the Office of Elections has been overworked because of the large voter turnout.

“When same day registration came about in 2020, that killed us,” Viar said. “Same day registration in 2023, it was horrible. Last year was worse. Last year we received 4,340 same day registrations. Counting myself, there are six of us here. For five people there were 756 hours of comp time last election cycle. Over and above your normal working hours…There’s never enough hands-on, so we work around the clock to meet the state’s deadline.”

In past elections, the registrar staff received comp-time. For this election, the Board of Supervisors gave the staff the choice between comp-time or overtime pay. In the future, the board will allocate money in their budget for temporary election staff. 

There are many factors to consider when planning early voting options. DeMotts said it may be “possibly something the board will kind of have to deal with every election cycle.”

“Coming out of it this year, we have some pretty good direction for our staff,” DeMotts said. “What we want to do is proactively budget for future satellite voting locations as part of an early in the year process.”

Early, in-person voting at the Montgomery County Office of Elections in Christiansburg runs from Sept. 19 through Oct. 31, with one closure on Oct. 13. For more information, visit montva.com.