The voter then will feed the ballot into the scanner, and it does not matter how.

“It can go any way — upside down, right-side up, forward and backward,” Henrico Registrar Mark J. Coakley said.

Those cicada voters who have not cast a ballot since 2012 also will discover that they must have photo identification to vote.

“Not the bank statement, the utility bill or the paper ID,” Showalter said.

Virginia law allows voters to use a range of IDs — issued by government agencies, employers or schools — as long as they are valid and include a photo.

Voters who do not have a photo ID will have three choices: go home to retrieve one; ask the registrar’s office to take their photo; or cast a provisional ballot, which will be accepted through Monday, Nov. 14, because Veterans Day will close registrar offices on the Friday after the election.

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But registrars say the use of paper ballots and optical scanners may be the least of challenges for voters Tuesday, when for the first time in memory they will be asked to fill out both sides of the ballot in Richmond and Henrico.