Arlington’s two Republican members of the Electoral Board appear at loggerheads over how long early-voting dropboxes should be available before Election Day.
Richard Samp, the senior Republican on the three-member panel and its vice chair, used the July 8 board meeting to press for a reduction from more than 40 days of use to just 10. Not everyone was in favor.
Samp said the elections office was running its “own private mail service,” since it is required that each of the nine dropboxes scattered across Arlington be emptied every day.
He argued that the dropboxes prove their worth in the day leading up to an election, but are largely extraneous prior to that.
Combined, the nine dropboxes received only 600 ballots in the first 35 days of early voting leading up to the June 17 Democratic primary. That averages out to about two per box per day during the period.
“I would hope we would consider limited dropboxes … to 10 days before elections,” Samp said.
But Dominick Schirripa, another Republican who currently serves as the Electoral Board’s chair, said he wasn’t a fan of that approach, even for primaries when voter turnout is lower.
“I understand the concept of not having them open until the last days,” Schirripa said, but “we have generally … kept things the same from election to election. The more regularity we have, the better.”
Samp said the cost of sending staff out to each of the locations every day was “not significant enough” to alter his view.
The Electoral Board is a Circuit Court-appointed body that helps to conduct elections. It’s a three-member board with two of those representing the current governor’s political party — Republican, in this case — and a third representing the party with the second-highest number of statewide votes.
The discussion was heated at times but largely civil, and the body’s lone Democrat — Electoral Board secretary Kim Phillip — stayed out of the fracas.
According to election officials, the dropbox at Courthouse Plaza led the pack in the lead-up to the primary, with 275 ballots submitted. Westover Library (213), Central Library (192), Langston-Brown Community Center (128) and Shirlington Library (126) rounded out the top five.
Those with fewer ballots deposited included Walter Reed Community Center (103), Aurora Hills Community Center (77), Arlington Mill Community Center (50) and Madison Community Center (40).
For the primary, dropboxes were available from May 5 through June 17 at 7 p.m.
Several years ago, representatives of the Arlington County Republican Committee’s voter-integrity unit mounted an effort to reduce the number of dropboxes from nine to as few as three.
Electoral Board members opted to defer consideration of the issue beyond the 2024 presidential election, and Schirripa on July 8 said he didn’t have a problem with maintaining the current number at least until the boxes need to be replaced.
“I don’t mind that we have nine,” he said.
Electoral Board sets early voting for general election: The June 17 Democratic primary is still a recent memory, but Arlington election officials are reading for the Nov. 4 general election.
Electoral Board members on July 8 ratified a staff proposal for early-voting opportunities at Courthouse Plaza beginning Sept. 19 and at the Madison and Walter Reed community centers starting Oct. 21.
The dates and hours will be in line with what was in place for the 2022 federal midterm election, county registrar Gretchen Reinemeyer said.
“The governor’s [race] and the midterms are really comparable — we anticipate a similar turnout,” Reinemeyer said.
State law only requires that early voting be conducted at the headquarters of each elections office, which in Arlington is the Ellen M. Bozman Government Center in Courthouse Plaza.
Arlington typically has used the Madison Community Center in the northernmost part of the county and the Walter Reed Community Center between Columbia Pike and Shirlington as auxiliary sites.
“You can only physically put so many people through this building,” Reinemeyer said of the Courthouse Plaza site. “We cannot meet the demand.”
County Board members earlier this year agreed to an Electoral Board request removing Long Bridge Park as an additional early-voting site. Outside of presidential-election years, there is not the demand to justify the cost of staffing the fourth site, election officials say.
Polling places certified as ADA-compliant: Arlington Electoral Board members on July 8 certified that each of the county’s 54 polling places meets state and federal requirements for accessibility.
The certification is required annually by the Virginia Department of Elections. Local electoral boards must signify that all polling places in a jurisdiction abide by regulations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Virginians with Disabilities Act and related legislation.
County registrar Gretchen Reinemeyer said the annual certification is conducted leading up to, and the day of, primary elections in the spring.
Election report released: County election officials have released a post-election report on the June 17 Democratic primary, providing a treasure trove of statistical information.
Those aficionados will need to come up with their own analysis of what the data mean, however.
“We don’t determine statistical significance on any of these numbers,” county registrar Gretchen Reinemeyer said at the July 8 Electoral Board meeting.
Some of the information was first presented at a post-primary Electoral Board meeting in late June, but it has all been collected into a single document.
A total of 26,962 Arlington voters cast ballots in the primary, representing 16% of active voters in the county.
