Yes, early voting appears here to stay, and yes, far more people are taking advantage of it. But the tried-and-true method of showing up on Election Day seems not to be going anyplace, either.
Nearly two-thirds – 64 percent – of Arlington voters cast their ballots on Election Day this year, according to an election-data wrapup.
The remainder were split between mail-in voting and a larger group that voted during early-voting opportunities.
For years, Virginia had some significant limits on the ability of voters to cast ballots before Election Day, but that has eased in recent years.
Since then, “we just keep seeing pretty dramatic increases” in early voting, said county elections chief Gretchen Reinemeyer.
That said, she figures that “at some point, we’ll level off.”
Just under 92,000 Arlingtonians voted in this year’s general election, about 57 percent of all active voters, in an election season whose top race was the never-in-doubt 8th District U.S. House of Representatives contest.