Context for Records:The election records group encompasses all of the documents dealing with public elections and is related to voters and voting. The franchise in Virginia has varied in its extent. Prior to the revolutionary war, white male freeholders (real property owners) over 21, were the only individuals entitled to vote. This condition was continued by the 1776 Constitution. Alterations in the extent of the franchise could only be made by constitutional change. There was an attempt in 1829-30 to extend the franchise as well as to reapportion the representation to the general assembly. The right to vote was extended to potential property owners (reversioners or remaindermen of freehold estates) and long term leaseholders, as well as white males over 21 who have resided in a locality for at least twelve months and paid taxes. The constitution of 1850-51 widely extended the suffrage. All white males aged 21, residents of Virginia for two years, and resident for one year in the locality in which they were living at the time of the election were now eligible to vote. The 1867-68 Constitution extended the vote to include Black males.

Several attempts were made to restrict the suffrage by imposing educational requirements and making the ballot secret. These acts included the Anderson-McCormick law and the Walton law of 1893-94. The 1902 voter registration books were created following the passage of the 1902 Virginia state constitution. The purpose of the 1902 state constitution was to maintain white suffrage while eliminating Black voters by means of literacy tests as well as property and poll tax requirements. The Nineteenth Amendment was granted the right to vote to women. It was proposed on June 4, 1919 and ratified on August 18, 1920. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of Black voters in the United States. The Act prohibited states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." Congress intended the Act to outlaw the practice of requiring otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests in order to register to vote, a principal means by which southern states had prevented Black citizens from exercising the franchise.

Locality History: Mathews County was named for Thomas Mathews, of Norfolk, the Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates when it was formed from Gloucester County by a statute passed on 16 December 1790 to take effect on 1 May 1791.

Lost Locality Note:Most Mathews County records were burned in Richmond on 3 April 1865, where they had been moved for safekeeping during the Civil War.