Arlington voters are casting ballots ahead of Election Day in numbers that could set a new high for years that don’t include the presidential race.
“We’re on track to see record early voting turnout in a non-presidential election,” county election director Gretchen Reinemeyer told ARLnow. “As of the end of Monday, there’s been a 48% increase over the same timeframe in 2021.”
As of yesterday (Wednesday), a total of 13,172 early votes had been cast, according to the election office’s online dashboard. The total included 8,524 in-person voters at Ellen M. Bozman Government Center and 4,648 ballots cast by mail.
The total represents about 8% of the 165,799 registered voters in the county, and is about 14% as many ballots as the 96,000 cast during the last gubernatorial election in 2021.
The first day of early voting attracted 865 in-person voters on Friday, Sept. 19. The next highest vote totals to date also were on Fridays: Oct. 3 (692 ballots cast) and Oct. 10 (675).
As the early-voting window continues, “I wouldn’t say they are slowing down — they are leveling off,” Reinemeyer said of voters turning up at the office.
“Whether or not that holds or not, only time will tell,” she said at the Wednesday (Oct. 15) Electoral Board meeting.
It also remains to be seen whether the larger number of early voters represent an increase in enthusiasm this year, or simply more people shifting to early-voting opportunities.
“It’s not clear if Election Day will be slower than normal,” Electoral Board chair Dominick Schirripa said at the Electoral Board meeting.
Both major political parties have deployed poll-greeters at the Bozman building, and are gearing up for a major Election Day push.
Arlington Democrats are planning to have a total of 700 volunteers on duty throughout the county’s 54 precincts on Nov. 4. Volunteers are being asked to take two-hour shifts.
The poll-greeting duty will help those “tired and angry” at the current state of political affairs to “channel that into action,” said Sarah Lanford, who heads precinct operations for county Democrats.
Though not having the resources as their Democratic counterparts, Arlington Republicans also are ramping up get-out-the-vote efforts.
Electoral Board says decision on new voting equipment stands: Arlington’s three Electoral Board members say they will not reopen their decision on new voting equipment, and criticized vendors not chosen for seemingly attempting to force them to do so.
The Electoral Board in September selected Unisyn Voting Solutions to provide next-generation voting equipment. The firm is the same one that supplied the most recent election system a decade ago.
At the Oct. 15 Electoral Board meeting, all three Electoral Board members called out unnamed competing firms for attempting end-arounds to reopen the process.
One unsuccessful firm sent letters to the county’s political-party chairs, while another attempted private discussions with County Board members, it was suggested at the meeting.
“Disappointed is how I would express how I feel,” Electoral Board Chair Dominick Schirripa said at the Oct. 15 meeting.
He added that the Board “is not going to reconsider” its decision.
Schirripa and vice chair Richard Samp, both Republicans, were joined by Electoral Board secretary Kim Phillip, a Democratic, in voicing concern about the situation.
“The contacts that were made also disappointed me,” Phillip said.
“We had a pretty stringent process that we went through” to make the final choice, she said. “I am happy to have a conversation with vendors to explain why we came to our decision.”
Samp said he was “quite comfortable” with how the process played out and the decision was made.
Arlington typically replaces election equipment once per decade. The competitive process is open to all firms currently certified by the Virginia Department of Elections to provide localities with voting systems.
“It isn’t an easy decision,” county director of elections Gretchen Reinemeyer said.
Reinemeyer said she was disappointed if competing firms were attempting to “sow distrust” by suggesting Unisyn should not have been selected.
“Each system that is qualified in Virginia is a high-quality system,” she said.
Negotiations between the county government and Unisyn currently are underway. At the September meeting when the firm was selected, election officials said it was possible that, in the end, no agreement would be reached. In that case, another vendor would be chosen.
Election officials are using the existing equipment for the Nov. 4 election. They hope to have the new equipment in place by next year’s primary election in the spring.
