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Voter registration jumps
Thousands of new voters have registered in Fairfax County this year and election officials are preparing for a big turnout at the polls.
Oct. 6 was the final day to register to vote, and 48,332 new voters had signed up in the county in 2008, said Gary Scott, deputy registrar, as well as about 12,000 people who moved into Fairfax from other Virginia localities. About 20,000 voters left the county during that same time and are off the voter rolls here.
"Yesterday our phones were just slammed," Scott said Tuesday morning, adding that no applications were actually processed Monday because staff were busy taking phone calls all day.
About 300 people came into the registrar's office to apply on the last day, which is a little higher than normal, he said.
The number of new voters registering is actually lower than in some past presidential election years, but about 64 percent of county residents are now registered to vote, versus about 60 percent of the population in 2000.
The number of registered voters has increased by about 14 percent since President George Bush's first race against former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, and about 5 percent since the 2004 race between Bush and Sen. John Kerry.
This is Scott's fourth presidential election in Fairfax County, and "it's a little more intense" than past elections.
The biggest change is the increased interest in absentee voting, as more people realize they are eligible, he said. In addition to more traditional reasons for voting absentee, such as being out of the area or country on Election Day, anyone who lives in Fairfax County and works in another jurisdiction is eligible to vote absentee, as is anyone who will be working and commuting for 11 or more hours on Election Day.
"People are realizing if they live in Fairfax and work in Arlington, they are eligible," Scott said.
Earlier this year, the county purchased 240 optical scan machines to prepare for an onslaught of voters Nov. 4. Because optical scan machines use paper ballots, more people can vote at the same time using optical scan.
The county will also still be deploying its 1,200 touch-screen voting machines, and voters will have a choice of which method to use.
Times Staff Writer Holly Hobbs contributed to this report.
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