Politics & Government

Absentee Voting Down in Fairfax County

Fairfax City residents cast about 900 less absentee ballots this year than in 2008.

Update (4:15 p.m. Nov. 5, 2012): Absentee voting in Fairfax County is down about 2.7 percent from 2008, according to numbers released by the Virginia Public Access Project on Monday, Nov. 5, 2012.

In 2008, 83,523 county residents cast absentee ballots, compared to 81,273 in 2012.

But while absentee voting in Fairfax County is still down slightly, early voting in Virginia is up overall from rates in 2008.

Find out what's happening in Herndonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

VPAP reports that as of Nov. 5, 2012, absentee voting is up about 2 percent in the Commonwealth. Of Virginia's 5.4 million registered voters, 427,987 have cast absentee ballots.

The earlier version of this story reported numbers through Friday, Nov. 2, 2012.

Find out what's happening in Herndonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

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Original Story: While people across the country may be turning out in large numbers to vote early, absentee voting in Fairfax County is down slightly from the 2008 presidential election.

As of Nov. 2, there were 13,799 voters registered in Fairfax City, down from the 15,506 voters registered in 2008.

Fairfax City had received 1,512 completed absentee ballots as of 3 p.m. Friday, nearly 11 percent of the city's registered voters.

Fairfax City residents cast 2,404 total absentee ballots in 2008, according to the Cook Report Absentee Ballot Tracker.

The Cook Report also shows early voting is down more in localities that went Democratic in the 2004 and 2008 elections.

Areas in Virginia that voted for Obama in 2008 were saw a decrease of about 14 percent in absentee voting, while areas that voted for McCain saw a much smaller decrease of only 1 percent.

Hurricane Sandy forced polling locations to close up and down the East Coast last weekend, but it’s unclear whether the storm will have negative impacts on absentee turnout.

Michael McDonald, a professor at George Mason University who studies early voting, didn’t think Sandy’s effects would be felt in the long run.

“[Polling places] have since reopened and there will be extended hours this weekend and that’s also when we expect the highest volume of early voting, so it balances,” he told Patch on Friday. “I would not think that there’s going to be much of an affect on early voting due to the hurricane.”

McDonald also pointed out early voting isn’t as weighty in Virginia as it is in other states because residents of the Commonwealth are required to have an excuse to vote absentee.

“It’s all going to come down to Election Day in Virginia,” he said. “They’re not as valuable as some other states, where you have a much higher volume of early voting.”

Check back with Patch throughout the day Tuesday for coverage from the polls and results from your area.


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