Hampton Roads hits the polls on Election Day

Election Day Tuesday was the final day for voters to choose new leaders — or return incumbents — who will help set agendas for the most pressing issues facing cities and schools.

For Hampton Roads, that meant filling several open seats on school boards and city councils, and three congressional races. (Election Day also means the end to weeks of nonstop TV campaign ads.)

More than 940,000 Virginians voted before Election Day and the rest took care of business Tuesday. Locally, residents voted in several city council, school board and congressional races.

Even though topics such as abortion rights and gun reform were not on the ballots, several voters said the national debate pushed them to vote. Other voters Tuesday said they are concerned about area homelessness and this year’s spike in violent crime. They want to have the right people in office to make a difference.

Here’s our guide to local races, complete with election previews and candidate spotlights.

Things to remember: Polls are open until 7 p.m.; if you’re in line by 7 p.m., you will still be allowed to vote. Voters must have an acceptable form of identification such as a Virginia driver’s license, utility bill with the voter’s name and address, and student, business or military ID. If not, voters will have to sign an ID Confirmation Statement at the polls or will vote with a provisional ballot. Also, if you haven’t registered yet, Virginia now allows people to register and vote on the same day.

To find out where your polling location is, visit the state’s website.

Find everything you need with The Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press online voter guide, and check back for updates on as we update Election Day in Hampton Roads.

Before polls opened Tuesday, roughly 943,000 ballots had already been cast — about 684,000 voted early in person and 259,000 voted by mail, according to the Virginia Department of Elections commissioner, Susan Beals. About 374,000 had requested absentee ballots.

While there were reports of voter intimidation in Arizona and North Carolina, Beals said they have not received similar reports in Virginia as of 11 a.m.

As of 5:30, only the Portsmouth Registrar reported experiencing an election day hiccup — a “glitch” with the computer software used for the electronic poll books. The glitch impacted three out of 31 precincts, but gave less than 10 people difficulty when casting their ballot at two of the locations.

“This was not a catastrophic, widespread issue. It was caught early and the remedy, just as it would be with any election, was to issue provisional ballots,” said Alexandra Abell, Portsmouth’s Director of Elections. “Every eligible vote, whether cast on the machine or provisionally, will be counted.”

Provisional ballots will be counted Monday. The electoral board is aware of the issue.

Katie Nesbitt, 35, of Newport News, has voted in every election since she was 18.

She started a new tradition Tuesday when she and her fiancé, Jim Warner, brought the couple’s 5-month-old daughter, Diana, to the Hilton Village polling station. They said Diana will tag along whenever they vote.

Nesbitt said social issues, including the Supreme Court’s recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, motivated her to vote for Democrats. She said what she does now will benefit her daughter later.

“I want her to be able to go in and just make sure that her opinions are heard,” Nesbitt said, as she snuggled Diana close to her. “That she votes for things that are important to her.”

Alton Robinson, 59, of Norfolk was volunteering Tuesday for City Council candidate John E. Paige outside of the Ingleside polling station. The election is about children, he said.

Robinson said he regularly attends council meetings and doesn’t agree with the city’s scrutiny of nightlife businesses as a way to address crime. He thinks a more effective approach would be to invest more in education.

“A young man that’s educated and taught how to be supportive of his family,” Robinson said, “he will be that.”

Todd Janssen, 57, a 30-year Navy veteran who has lived in Norfolk since 1997, said his vote hinged on crime. He hopes his preferred candidate can bring the crime rate down “whatever it takes,” whether that means adding more law enforcement or another approach.

His son is a deputy sheriff.

He said the last thing he wants to do is to talk to his friends and they ask, " ‘Man, what’s going on with Norfolk? Why’s the crime and stuff so high?’ "

Several residents said the act of voting was just as important as any issue.

Mike Glynn, 88, strode into the Hickory Middle School polling station wearing a cap that stated, “Once A Marine, Always A Marine.”

“I don’t ever remember missing an Election Day,” he said.

Glynn served four and a half years in the Marine Corps during the 1950s. He said he didn’t serve in the Korean War, however.

“No,” he said. “I missed all the good stuff.”

Still, Glynn said that he did his part to protect Americans’ freedoms, including the right to vote.

“It’s part of being a citizen,” Glynn said. “You can’t hang around and do nothing. At my age, I don’t do much. But voting, it’s one of the requirements of citizenship.”

Navy veteran Michael Barnes and his 21-year-old daughter, Theresa Barnes, also voted at Hickory Middle. Michael Barnes said he made sure he voted even when he was deployed overseas.

Tuesday’s election is the second in which Theresa Barnes was old enough to participate.

While her father didn’t provide his age, he said, “I voted for Reagan twice so that tells you how long ago that was.”

Theresa Barnes said it isn’t only her father who promotes the importance of voting.

“My friends vote, too,” she said.

The exhibits at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach were closed Tuesday, and its large lobby converted into a polling location.

Preston Boyd walked out of the museum with an “I Voted” sticker in his pocket and a Cleveland Browns football jersey on his back.

Boyd, who’s from Ohio, had never voted until he moved to Virginia Beach. The last election was his first.

While his Cleveland friends didn’t badger him to vote, the “locals” — he said referring to his Virginia Beach friends — did.

Now, he’s hooked.

“I feel like the importance of voting in an election is to get a person in office responsible enough to take care of our needs, not just the ones that impact me, but also the ones that impact my neighbors,” he said.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the small, white square of paper and peeled off the sticky backing.

“Yeah, they’ve been bothering the hell out of me,” Boyd said. “So now, I have my sticker.”

Staff writers Caitlyn Burchett, Peter Dujardin, Gavin Stone and Colin Warren-Hicks contributed to this story.