Washington Bureau

Fairfax May Be Slow to Report Results

Fairfax County will need to double the number of workers processing ballots Election Night in order to learn election results overnight, the county’s election manager said Thursday.

Fairfax and other localities stopped feeding ballots into optical scanning machines Friday after the state ordered the process halted so officials could review whether duplicate ballots were inadvertently mailed to voters.

The State Board of Elections’ email to local election officials asked they not resuming counting ballots until after Oct. 20 (Monday), but registrars said Thursday they were still waiting for a green light from the board.

“We’re waiting for direction from the state” before resuming the counting, said Judy Flaig, Fairfax County election manager.

“If we can’t count (now), we’ll need about 100 people to get it done overnight (Nov. 4),” said Flaig. Fairfax County was planning on having 50 or 60 officers of elections work to count ballots on Election Night.

“When you get too many people it’s harder to keep it well organized and systematic,” she said.

Fairfax County already counted 54,000 ballots before stopping Friday, Flaig said, putting them “ahead of where we were in 2004.”

Loudoun County officials said if they can’t count mailed-in ballots early, it could take up to two days to learn that county’s results.

--Neil H. Simon
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