Beyond Congress: The County Races Arlington Decides Tuesday
The federal races get the mailers, but Tuesday's Arlington ballot also fills the local seats that set your taxes, your schools' budget and your zoning map. A voter's guide to the bottom half of the ballot.
Arlington's form of government concentrates unusual power in unusually few hands. The five-member County Board — elected at-large, in staggered terms — is simultaneously the county's legislature and its executive, and the five-member School Board oversees one of the most closely watched public school systems in Virginia. Seats on both bodies are on Tuesday's ballot.
These are the offices that decide the things residents actually call about: the real estate tax rate, whether a corridor gets taller, how school capacity is added, what the county's stormwater and housing programs look like. Turnout in the local half of the ballot is always lower than in the federal races above it — which means Arlington's local future is routinely decided by the smaller, more stubborn half of its electorate.
Because Arlington elects its board members countywide rather than by district, every Arlington voter sees the same county races regardless of neighborhood. Your sample ballot on the Citizen Portal lists them exactly as they will appear, alongside the U.S. Senate and U.S. House races and the three state constitutional amendments.
One Arlington practical note: the county is compact and its precincts are close together, which produces the classic Election Day error — voting at the convenient precinct instead of your assigned one. On Election Day, Virginia requires you to vote where you are assigned. Check your precinct before you leave, vote 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., and the bottom half of the ballot — the half that runs your county — gets its say.
