Falls Church could consolidate all Election Day voting in a single location, if the General Assembly supports doing so next year.
The city currently is divided into three voting wards, with two voting in different parts of the Falls Church Community Center and the third at Oak Street Elementary School.
Recent changes in Falls Church voting patterns have led to about half the electorate abandoning Election Day voting in favor of mail-in or early voting. As a result, election officials believe, the three existing election wards could be consolidated into two, with all voting taking place at the community center.
The only hurdle is state law, which requires precincts to contain no more than 5,000 voters. With about 12,000 registered in Falls Church, the city is obligated to provide at least three voting sites.
At the June 16 Falls Church Electoral Board meeting, registrar David Bjerke proposed asking the legislature to ease that requirement.
The same state law setting the 5,000-voter cap on precincts also requires that no precinct have more than 4,000 voters turning up in person on Election Day. Because so many Falls Church voters have turned to other options, the city’s voting precincts no longer approach that number even in presidential-election years, Bjerke said.
“We’re never going to have 4,000 or more at precincts,” he said.
Although now totaling three, Falls Church once had five voting precincts.
Consolidating all Election Day operations at one location would be “very helpful,” said Alan Wisdom, a Republican member and secretary of the Electoral Board.
“It would be easier if we could do the whole election at the community center,” Wisdom said.
Electoral Board members will consider the matter over the coming six weeks, deciding in August whether to press for revisions to state law.
Early ballots go out for primary: Falls Church election officials have mailed out a first tranche of 708 ballots for the Aug. 4 state primaries.
They were requested by voters who prefer voting by mail or via the city’s dropbox to other options.
Mail ballots for Falls Church residents begin going out several days in advance of the start of early voting. For the Aug. 4 primaries, early voting begins June 18.
“We are primed and ready for the start of early voting,” Bjerke said at the June 16 Electoral Board meeting.
In Falls Church, Democratic voters will select a nominee for 8th District U.S. House of Representatives and Republican voters will choose a U.S. Senate nominee.
Virginia does not register voters by party affiliation. Voters are able to take part in either Aug. 4 primary, but not both.
Of those who requested vote-by-mail ballots in Falls Church, nearly 86% are participating in the Democratic primary — not terribly unusual, given the composition of the voting electorate.
Bjerke said he anticipates early voting to be light for the first few weeks leading into the primaries.
“People are waiting to the end [to vote], or not really tuned in,” he said.
