Counting Fairfax County could make for a late night

Tue, November 04, 2008 - 5:43 PM

McLEAN,Va--The top election official for Fairfax County reports Election Day appears to be going off without a hitch.

“We’ve had some minor machine problems,” Rokey Suleman said, but “everything to my knowledge appears to be going smooth.”

Results from the state’s largest county, representing about one in seven Virginia voters, may still not be known until close to midnight, Suleman said.

That’s because, he said, the county received thousands of absentee ballots in the mail today. The county does not start counting those ballots until polls close at 7 p.m.

In-person absentee ballots were counted at the time they were cast, Suleman said. So the flood of ballots cast early should not impact the speed with which we learn Virginia results.

--Neil H. Simon