Arlington, Virginia, has opened nine 24-hour ballot drop boxes.
The Board of Elections announced on Thursday that it would start opening the locations, and that the process would be completed “by late Friday.”
The locations are:
- Courthouse Plaza, along Clarendon Boulevard near the early voting site by the Metro elevator.
- Aurora Hills Community Center, 735 18th St. S.
- Arlington Mill Community Center, 909 S. Dinwiddie St.
- Central Library, 1015 N. Quincy St.
- Langston-Brown Community Center, 2121 N. Culpeper St.
- Madison Community Center, 3829 N. Stafford St.
- Shirlington Library, 4200 Campbell Ave.
- Walter Reed Community Center, 2909 16th St. S.
- Westover Library, 1644 N. McKinley Road.
Most, but not all, of these locations are also early voting sites, where ballots can also be dropped off in supervised spots at regular hours. Those are Government Center (2100 Clarendon Blvd., third floor); Courthouse Plaza (2200 Clarendon Blvd., in the former Wells Fargo), which are open now; and the Aurora Hills, Langston-Brown, Madison and Walter Reed Community Centers, starting Oct. 17.
The Board of Elections said on its website that the boxes are made of “durable material able to withstand vandalism, removal and inclement weather, and are securely fastened to the sidewalk to prevent moving or tampering.” The opening in the box isn’t big enough to allow for any ballot tampering, and the boxes are under 24-hour video surveillance, with the video being kept until 30 days after the certification of election results. Ballots will be picked up daily.
You can find the hours for all the locations on the Arlington Board of Elections site.
Arlington has the most drop boxes, but the other counties in the D.C. area are making accommodations for early voting too:
Fairfax County
In Fairfax County, elections officials said the only 24-hour drop box is the one already outside the Fairfax County Government Center. No additional ones are planned.
But drop boxes will be operating inside each early voting site – 15 will be running by the end of the week – for the hours that they’ll be open. And drop boxes will be open at all 243 Fairfax County voting sites on Nov. 3 from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.
You can find the list of early voting sites on the Fairfax County Board of Elections website.
Loudoun County
The Office of Elections said that there would be no 24-hour drop boxes, but that boxes would be at the county’s early voting locations, as well as at all county libraries, which are open Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and on Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ballots are picked up once a day, and librarians “have been sworn to monitor the boxes,” said Director of Elections Judith Brown.
One early voting location has opened – the Office of Elections, at 750 Miller Drive SE, in Leesburg. Three more – the Loudoun County Government Office at Ridgetop, the Dulles South Senior Center and the Carver Senior Center – open Saturday, Oct. 17.
Check the locations and hours of the early voting sites. And check the locations of the libraries (click “Locations” at the top).
