Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 12:05     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:The reason that it's now mandatory to close schools to use them as poling places (when I was a kid, my school was a polling place and school was definitely open that day, we just didn't have gym) is because of sex offender laws.

Sex offenders often need to be a certain number of feet away from schools but they can still vote. Ergo, schools have to be closed on Election Day.


Sex offenders are allowed to vote?
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 10:23     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I might need to ask this in political forum? How many of you are planning to vote on Election Day? My 17-year-old and I already voted early at the government center.


How? Just curious. Are you able to vote with an amount of grace period before actually turning 18?



I remember back in 2008, I turned 18 in April and was still able to vote in the Virginia primary in February or March.
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 10:21     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I might need to ask this in political forum? How many of you are planning to vote on Election Day? My 17-year-old and I already voted early at the government center.


How? Just curious. Are you able to vote with an amount of grace period before actually turning 18?



You can vote in this election at 17 if you will be 18 by the November election.
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 09:46     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
The reason that it's now mandatory to close schools to use them as poling places (when I was a kid, my school was a polling place and school was definitely open that day, we just didn't have gym) is because of sex offender laws.

Sex offenders often need to be a certain number of feet away from schools but they can still vote. Ergo, schools have to be closed on Election Day.
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 09:28     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
It’s a pain, I know. But elections are probably the only closure that I don’t complain about. I don’t want random people wandering the halls while my kids are there.
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 08:34     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:I work at a school and there would be no where for voters to park. When we have events that bring in more than 10 visitors at a time during the school day… parking is a disaster.


Good point
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 08:15     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
I work at a school and there would be no where for voters to park. When we have events that bring in more than 10 visitors at a time during the school day… parking is a disaster.
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 08:08     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
You can vote in this election at 17 if you will be 18 by the November election.

Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 07:45     Subject: Re:Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:With all of the heated political rhetoric and incidents of political violence, it would be foolish to keep schools open. There’s no way to keep the building secure on voting days. During special elections this year, schools were told to have a staff member monitor the door that separated the voters from the rest of the school. That is someone who was pulled from working with students, who was unarmed, asked to act as security. The Board of Elections nor the county would provide personnel to help with security.


Yes.

There was a "yes" voter who ran up to the "no" tent and started screaming at them and cussing them out at our early voting site

Unfortunately, that kind of partisan craziness makes it dicey to have school in session during voting.

People used to be much more civil until both sides decided to justify all sorts of crazy unacceptible behavior on "but orangeman bad"
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 07:40     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:I might need to ask this in political forum? How many of you are planning to vote on Election Day? My 17-year-old and I already voted early at the government center.


Your 17 year old is too uoung to vote
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 07:33     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:I might need to ask this in political forum? How many of you are planning to vote on Election Day? My 17-year-old and I already voted early at the government center.


How? Just curious. Are you able to vote with an amount of grace period before actually turning 18?
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 07:31     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Hasn’t parking been given as a other reason?
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 07:24     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Because it’s way too crowded to of an area to only have polls open for a couple of hours, and that’s not really fair either in terms of accessibility for people who work all different kinds of schedules. Further, there’s way too many creeps to allow schools to be open while people are in there voting.


I think there's just as many creepy people around now as there were 20 years ago. Was education a higher priority back then?
They closed the schools for the bigger elections as far back as I can remember. They started closing the schools for other elections when voting became contentious and people started worrying about possible confrontations at the polls.
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 07:21     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Because it’s way too crowded to of an area to only have polls open for a couple of hours, and that’s not really fair either in terms of accessibility for people who work all different kinds of schedules. Further, there’s way too many creeps to allow schools to be open while people are in there voting.


FCPS keeps hiring the creeps (one example: https://x.com/FairfaxCountyPD/status/1887921833359348224), not to mention the student creeps (see Fairfax HS and all they did to protect kids there). If you think closing schools for one day makes the schools safe, you are fooling yourself.
Anonymous
Post 04/17/2026 06:34     Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Tuesday were picked way back when because it worked well for our agrarian society patterns at the time.

Now Rs would never agree to move it to the weekend because more people would vote and especially more people likely to vote D. So they will never allow it to move to the weekend. Look at all the crazy pushback on mail in voting even.