Virginia governor-elect’s underage son tried to vote on Election Day, officials say

Glenn Youngkin’s son reportedly tried to vote twice despite being ineligible

The 17-year-old son of Virginia’s governor-elect Glenn Youngkin tried to vote “on two occasions” during Tuesday’s elections despite being ineligible because of his age, election officials announced.

Mr Youngkin defeated Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe in the gubernatorial election on 2 November.

His teenage son reportedly walked into a polling place inside the Great Falls Library and presented his driver’s licence to a poll worker when asked for proof of his identity, according to Fairfax County election officials. The voting age is 18 years old, when one must also be registered to vote in order to cast a ballot.

“The young man presented identification but was ineligible to be registered due to his age and was not permitted to vote,” officials said in a statement. “The man was given a registration form and encouraged to register for future elections.”

He then returned to the voting precinct roughly 20 minutes later and insisted that he be allowed to cast a ballot, according to officials.

It is unclear whether he broke any election laws; Fairfax County Registrar Scott Konopasek has clarified that making an attempt to vote when ineligible, and not actually voting, is not necessarily illegal.

“The man did not vote. He made no false statements,” he said in a statement. “He did not disrupt voting. Based upon information available to me now, it appears that he committed no election offense as defined in Chapter 10 of the Elections Code.”

Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for Mr Youngkin, said in a statement that “his political opponents – mad that they suffered historic losses this year – are pitching opposition research on a 17-year old kid who honestly misunderstood Virginia election law and simply asked polling officials if he was eligible to vote; when informed he was not, he went to school.”

In the aftermath of 2020 elections and Donald Trump’s baseless claims that widespread fraud and “rigged” elections manipulated the results, Republicans across the US have waged a spurious campaign to undermine election outcomes under the guise of preserving “election integrity” and “voter confidence” that their narratives have undermined.

In a statement on Monday, the former president said he is “not a believer in the integrity of Virginia’s elections, lots of bad things went on and are going on” and that “the way you beat it is to flood the system and get out and vote.”

Mr Youngkin was reluctant to admit that Joe Biden is the legitimately elected president until pressed in the weeks leading up to the governor’s election.

One of the state’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists, state Senator Amanda Chase, said Mr Youngkin’s team asked her to read from scripted remarks during a rally in August urging voters to cast their ballots early to combat Democratic voter fraud.