The Buckingham Herald Tribblog

About a dozen people were in line when Buckingham precinct polling officials arrived at K.W. Barrett Elementary School yesterday morning at 5a.m. Within hours, the line snaked out of the door, around the back of the building, and along the perimeter fence, stopping just short of the gate near the parking lot where party volunteers handed out materials, officials and voters said.

Alan Swanson, the chief of elections at the precinct, guessed the line to be close to a quarter mile at its longest.

“It’s a lot different than previous elections,” the veteran poll worker said.

Few glitches with the machines, speedy computerized voter registrar books, and about 20 poll workers (a record) kept the line moving throughout the morning.

By about 8a.m., the line was about one-third the length, ending on the basketball courts behind the building.

One man, moving off after voting, said that it took him about 90 minutes, but he had gotten in line near the ball field. Others inside, within 20 people of voting, said they had waited just short of an hour.

“When we had that mass, everyone was working really hard,” Mr. Swanson said. With the record turnout of volunteers, people were able to take breaks and stay fresh, he said.

After the morning rush, most of the day was a steady trickle of voters, but the turnout was “phenomenal” overall Mr. Swanson said.

Near 4:30p.m., Buckingham had logged about 2,600 voters, 1,700 on-site, and about 900 absentee. The official numbers are not available on the county’s web site yet, but the percentage might be in the 70s.

If these numbers prove accurate, they dwarf the voting in the last two national election cycles. In 2006, when Jim Webb raced for the U.S. Senate against George Allen, about 1,500 of the 3,300 registered voters, about 45 percent, went to the polls. In the 2004, Bush versus Kerry race, about 1,000 of the 1,800 registered voters, or 60 percent, went to the polls. Both were heavy turnouts for the precinct.

“This is a very active precinct,” said Carter Moore, the Democrat Precinct Captain for Buckingham. The precinct roughly spans from Arlington Boulevard to Interstate 66 between George Mason Drive and Glebe Road. Mr. Moore said the precinct has added about 15 percent more voters since 2006.

Yet for those people who arrived late in the day, it felt almost uneventful.

Mauricio Trujillo of Arlington Oaks, said rather than feeling historic, his vote just before 5p.m. felt the same as others.

“There was, like, no line,” he said.

Karin and Joel Paque also said the emptiness of the Barrett gym felt unhistoric.

“I definitely would have voted anyway,” even if it had not been an election in which either an African-American or a woman would enter the White House for the first time, said Ms. Paque, but she and her husband were hoping to find the spirit at an election night party they were planning to attend.

One first time voter who refused to give his name, said the atmosphere did not feel historic, but, “The whole election has seemed like it is to me….I got caught up in all that was going on this year.”

The county is reporting that nearly 51 percent of registered voters in the county voted:

Arlington County Election Results 2008.

Buckingham Precinct Notes 2007. (What a difference a year makes!)

Precinct Notes 2006.

Labels: Buckingham, election, vote

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 7:24 AM 0 comments

The voting lines may have been long at the Barrett School when you were there early in the morning, but by 10:30 a.m., they were gone. People were walking in and voting with written ballots or on the touch screen machines without any delays at all.

The lines may reappear later this afternoon.

Bernie Berne
Buckingham

Labels: Buckingham, election, vote

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 3:22 PM 0 comments

“The person, whoever did this, was able to enter a closed listserv,” said Dan Walsch, a press secretary with the university. He said that the hoax email did not target one party or another.

Provost Peter N. Stearns responded with at least two real emails:

“Dear Colleagues,

"It has come to my attention early this morning that a message was hacked into the system fraudulently stating that election day has been moved.

"I am sure everybody realizes this is a hoax, it is also a serious offense and we are looking into it. Please be reminded that election day is today, November 4th."

And another one:

"To the Mason Community:

"I hear some troubling rumors, so here are a couple of facts: 1. The election is Nov. 4, for all political parties. The notion that one party votes Nov. 5 is UNTRUE. 2. It is also UNTRUE that any student jeopardizes financial aid by voting."

The university is unsure if the hacker used a college computer, Mr. Walsch said. GMU has its main campus in Fairfax, Va., and a sattelite campus on Fairfax Drive in Arlington.

Labels: election, vote

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 1:20 PM 1 comments

About 40 percent of registered voters in Arlington cast ballots yesterday, overwhelmingly supporting Barack Obama, (D), and John McCain, (R), as candidates for the presidency.

Thirty-two percent of Buckingham’s registered voters headed out to the polls, voting for Democrats 948 times and Republicans 161 times.

In the Buckingham Precinct, Obama won 573 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 370. Other Democrats who are no longer seeking the nomination also won a handful of votes. Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards each won 2 votes, Bill Richardson received 1. Joe Biden did not get any on the Democratic side.

For the Republicans who received votes in Buckingham, John McCain took 115 votes, while Mike Huckabee took 21; Ron Paul, the only other person still seeking the Republican nomination, won 10 votes. Other Republicans, who no longer are seeking the nomination, also won a handful of votes. Mitt Romney won 14; Rudy Giulianni received 1 vote. Fred Thompson did not receive any votes.

With 44 percent of registered voters casting ballots in Arlington Forest, the 784 votes cast for Democrats balanced a little more evenly between the rivals than they had in Buckingham, but Mr. Obama still came out on top, 445 to 325. Other candidates no longer running won votes, as well. Mr. Edwards took 6 votes, Mr. Richardson won 5, while Mr. Kucinich had 3. Mr. Biden did not receive any votes in Arlington Forest.

Voters opted for the Republican primary 172 times, and Mr. McCain won handily in Arlington Forest, taking 105 votes to Mr. Huckabee’s 32. Mr. Paul won 19 votes. Other candidates who won votes but are no longer in the race, included Mr. Romney, 11 votes; Mr. Thompson, 3 votes; and Mr. Giuliani, 2 votes.

Precinct Totals of Votes Cast reported on the county's web site.

Labels: election, president, primary, vote

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 8:49 AM 0 comments

And this one is the space where the people walk to enter the K.W. Barrett Elementary School gymnasium to vote:

Finally, this one, slightly out of focus, is the gym. OK, it is the gym at about 1 p.m. But it was rather empty after business hours, too:

Only 18.84 percent of registered voters in Buckingham turned out tonight to help send Mary Hynes for her first term to the county board and Walter Tejada back for another four years.

Arlington Forest fared a little better at 29.52 percent.

At 5 p.m. just 500 people had voted at the Buckingham precinct, and only another 129 voted before the polls closed at 7 p.m. In all fairness, some people handed out materials at Buckingham, and Geoff Schwartzman, Mike McMenamin’s campaign manager, was still “optimistic” at the entrance to the Arlington Forest precinct. (In one of life’s little ironies, the Arlington Foresters vote at Culpepper Gardens, located in Buckingham, and Buckinghamsters vote at Barrett, in Arlington Forest.)

Buckingham Precinct Notes

County Board:
Walter Tejada(D): 392
Mary Hynes (D): 352
McMenamin (R): 215
Warren (R): 108
Ruebner (Green): 80

School Board
Raphael (D): 490
Unopposed.

Clerk of Court
Ferguson (D): 421
Kelly (R): 144

Commonwealth’s Attorney
Trodden (D): 493

Sheriff
Arthur: 479
Strasburg: 91

Commissioner of Revenue
Morroy (D): 493
Unopposed.

Treasurer
O’Leary (D): 472

Labels: election, politics, vote

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 10:26 PM 0 comments

The forum will be held at the Arlington Oaks Community Center, 4490 N. Pershing Dr. (at the corner of N. Pershing and N. 2nd Street, across N. Pershing from Culpepper Gardens). Parking is limited to on-street, so walk if you can.

The general election is Tuesday Nov. 6, with 13 seats from school board to Virginia Senate up for grabs.

Mr. Ruebner made a splash in local politics last year when he won five percent of the county vote against Democrat Chris Zimmerman, who won the three-way board race in a landslide against Mr. Ruebner and Mike McMenamin, the Republican candidate. (Mr. McMenamin is running again this year, and we’re hoping to find a date for his Meet-n-Greet. The three other board candidates have been contacted.)

Mr. Ruebner’s platform promotes affordable housing and critiques overdevelopment and gentrification in the county, campaign materials say. His web site mentions his support of racial and economic diversity. He stands against the use of trolley cars on Columbia Pike (near where he lives) as a “boondoggle” for businesses and a county board that wants to gentrify that South Arlington neighborhood, his web site says.

Food and beverages will be served--watch this space and other places for more about this.

Labels: candidate, debate, election, vote

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 11:09 AM 1 comments