It may be a tight squeeze for some Arlington voters on Nov. 5.
The county’s polling places “are at capacity,” county elections director Gretchen Reinemeyer told County Board members during an April 2 budget work session.
The county’s 54 voting precincts “cannot handle the influx of new voters,” particularly in the rapidly urbanizing areas of the county, Reinemeyer said.
Three of Virginia’s 30 voting precincts with the most registered voters are in those areas. That includes the commonwealth’s single largest precinct – Arlington #118, voting at Innovation Elementary School in the Courthouse area – which tops the list with more than 6,800 registered voters.
While more voters than ever have been casting ballots in previously atypical ways ways, Election Day itself still brings huge crowds to precincts, particularly in presidential years.
Members of the Arlington Electoral Board could later in the year seek County Board approval to carve out new precincts from existing ones. “Don’t be bashful” about asking for resources, County Board member Susan Cunningham said.
The problem for Arlington officials is they can’t simply wave a magic wand and create new precincts. They have to find places for voting to occur.
And that’s not easy – there are few remaining public buildings that don’t double as voting sites, and owners of private buildings sometimes are unwilling to let them be used for elections.
Despite the challenges, there seems to be a glass-half-full view among County Board members, who see a growing population as a blessing, albeit one not without challenges.
An increasing electorate is “a good problem to have, but a problem nonetheless,” board member Takis Karantonis said.
As with county constitutional offices such as sheriff and treasurer, the elections office is not a local-government department. Its duties are outlined by state law and the three-member Electoral Board is chosen by the Circuit Court.
Nonetheless, county tax dollars do help to fund a large percentage of the office’s operations. County Manager Mark Schwartz’s proposed fiscal 2025 budget allocates $2.67 million to election-office operations, up 26 percent owing to the necessities of a presidential-election year that could see turnout approach 80 percent of Arlington’s registered voters.
