About 3.3 percent of Arlington voters participating in the March 5 presidential primaries used the county’s 24-hour voting drop boxes to cast their ballots.
That’s according to new data from the county’s elections office, and the results may be used as fodder down the road when Democrats and Republicans next year re-engage on the issue of how many dropboxes are enough.
The nine dropboxes were open starting Jan. 23 to accept ballots that had been mailed out to voters in advance of the Democratic and Republican primaries. Elections-office staff retrieved them daily.
Some within the Republican ranks have contended that nine dropboxes is too many. But even now that the Arlington Electoral Board contains two Republicans to one Democrat, the body has declined to press the matter with county elections director Gretchen Reinemeyer.
Electoral Board members earlier this year kicked the can down the road to 2025, after the presidential election, and will retain the nine dropbox locations at least for the remainder of this year.
Among the options, the dropbox at the county-government headquarters in Courthouse saw the most returned ballots, at 244, followed by Central Library (192) and Westover (244). Other dropbox results included Shirlington (103 returns), Langston-Brown (98), Aurora Hills (90), Walter Reed (89), Madison (49) and Arlington Mill (34).
