A Fairfax County supervisor is pressing his colleagues to add funding for additional ballot drop boxes to support future elections.
Currently, the county operates a single permanent voter dropbox at the Fairfax County Government Center, for a community of about 1.1 million people spread across approximately 400 square miles.
One is the minimum required under state election law, and Fairfax’s single location available 24/7 is equivalent to the lone drop box operated by the City of Falls Church, which has less than 2% of the county’s population and less than 0.6% of its square mileage.
In accordance with state law, the county provides temporary boxes for dropping off mail ballots at early voting locations during voting hours at those facilities, which run from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. in most cases. Boxes are also available at all precincts on Election Day.
But, to provide more options for voters, Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck is seeking $45,000 in carryover budget funding to add permanent drop boxes at the Mount Vernon and North County governmental centers.
Permanent drop boxes across Northern Virginia, like the one outside the Fairfax County Government Center, are accessible to voters 24 hours a day and have video monitoring to ensure against tampering. As a result, voters can drop off their completed ballots “even at 10 at night,” Storck said during the Board of Supervisors’ Budget Policy Committee meeting on Wednesday (Sept. 1).
While Fairfax County has just the single 24-hour drop box, neighboring Arlington, which has less than a quarter of Fairfax’s population, operates nine dotted across just 26 square miles. That equates to one for every 3 square miles in that community.
That number has not been without controversy, with some Republicans on the Electoral Board and in the party’s local leadership contending it is too high. But even when the GOP held a majority on the county’s Electoral Board, there was no major push to reduce their numbers.
If Storck’s colleagues approve his budget request, it’s not clear yet whether the additional permanent drop boxes will be available for the Nov. 3 general election.
Funding for the new drop boxes has been added as a consideration item for the fiscal year 2026 carryover package, which reappropriates money that was budgeted in the previous fiscal year but not spent. The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the package at its Sept. 15 meeting, and early voting for the election begins Sept. 19.
“Upon approval of funding, our office will need to complete materials sourcing and coordinate installation of the drop boxes,” Fairfax County Office of Elections spokesperson Sean Stewart told FFXnow when asked about the timing. “Our goal is to open the drop boxes for use as soon as this process allows.”
State law requires that ballots be removed from drop boxes at least daily, either by two members of the community’s Electoral Board, preferably of different political parties, or two staff members of a registrar’s office.
The county government ended its most recent fiscal year with a surplus of $63.53 million, or about 1.1% of the total budget, supervisors were told at the Budget Policy Committee meeting.
Staff has proposed uses for much of that surplus, but supervisors also made requests for some of the remaining unallocated cash.
In addition to Storck’s request for additional ballot drop boxes, budget requests by some supervisors were made to permanently bring back crossing guards at some high schools ($400,000); fund design and the bidding process for a proposed Chantilly Arts Hub ($900,000); and continuation of an internship at the Office of the Financial and Program Auditor ($20,000).
