Anonymous
04/18/2026 13:50
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Why can’t they use churches and libraries? It would be one thing if voting was once every 4 years or 2 years, but this is twice a year they close.
Anonymous
04/18/2026 13:48
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Schools were closed on election day back when i was in elementary school. This isnt new. VA law requires polls to be open specific hours. And kids cant be in school while the building is used for voting. Duh.
Np. It is new to me. In my home state, the community centers and libraries are polling places. Apparently schools could be used (just looked it up), but they were not the majority of polling locations back then and are used even less often now.
Kids can be in school on election day, but not the way OP suggests, and not the way we currently do it here in VA.
Your hometown doesn't have a population of 1.1 million people. That's huge. Schools are plentiful here and make for an easy way to serve the voting population.
Firehouse dont have space, parking, risk of voters getting in the way of emergency vehicles. Libraries aren't as ubiquitous as you think.
Phoenix has a population of 1.7 million, and most polling places are not schools. Schools do not closing for voting.
Schools are an easy answer here, sure, I can agree with that. I am not suggesting that schools stay open; I am not the OP of this thread. My point is that saying "duh" is not necessary. Other places do things differently, and closing schools for voting is not the only obvious option.
Anonymous
04/18/2026 10:41
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Schools were closed on election day back when i was in elementary school. This isnt new. VA law requires polls to be open specific hours. And kids cant be in school while the building is used for voting. Duh.
Np. It is new to me. In my home state, the community centers and libraries are polling places. Apparently schools could be used (just looked it up), but they were not the majority of polling locations back then and are used even less often now.
Kids can be in school on election day, but not the way OP suggests, and not the way we currently do it here in VA.
Your hometown doesn't have a population of 1.1 million people. That's huge. Schools are plentiful here and make for an easy way to serve the voting population.
Firehouse dont have space, parking, risk of voters getting in the way of emergency vehicles. Libraries aren't as ubiquitous as you think.
Anonymous
04/18/2026 10:36
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Schools were closed on election day back when i was in elementary school. This isnt new. VA law requires polls to be open specific hours. And kids cant be in school while the building is used for voting. Duh.
Np. It is new to me. In my home state, the community centers and libraries are polling places. Apparently schools could be used (just looked it up), but they were not the majority of polling locations back then and are used even less often now.
Kids can be in school on election day, but not the way OP suggests, and not the way we currently do it here in VA.
Anonymous
04/18/2026 09:58
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
The more pertinent question is why have this stupid referendum that no matter the outcome will be tossed by the courts. That is causing this unnecessary school closure.
Anonymous
04/18/2026 09:20
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why can’t voting either take place after school hours, like 5-8pm or on a Saturday or Sunday like other countries. Why do schools have to close for voting?
Democrats have introduced 9 bills in the past 15 years that would allow weekend voting, and every single one has been defeated by republicans.
That's why you can't vote on the weekend.
I really wish things like this would be publicized. Why isn’t this in the media why isn’t it on social media (I mean, I know people are controlling this). [/quote]
Early voting is open today. Today is Saturday.
Only report I could find on this is from 2012.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-introduced-to-move-election-day-to-weekend/
Anonymous
04/18/2026 09:16
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why can’t voting either take place after school hours, like 5-8pm or on a Saturday or Sunday like other countries. Why do schools have to close for voting?
Democrats have introduced 9 bills in the past 15 years that would allow weekend voting, and every single one has been defeated by republicans.
That's why you can't vote on the weekend.
I really wish things like this would be publicized. Why isn’t this in the media why isn’t it on social media (I mean, I know people are controlling this).
Early voting is open today. Today is Saturday.
Anonymous
04/18/2026 08:46
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Why can’t voting either take place after school hours, like 5-8pm or on a Saturday or Sunday like other countries. Why do schools have to close for voting?
Democrats have introduced 9 bills in the past 15 years that would allow weekend voting, and every single one has been defeated by republicans.
That's why you can't vote on the weekend.
I really wish things like this would be publicized. Why isn’t this in the media why isn’t it on social media (I mean, I know people are controlling this).
Anonymous
04/18/2026 07:39
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Why can’t voting either take place after school hours, like 5-8pm or on a Saturday or Sunday like other countries. Why do schools have to close for voting?
Democrats have introduced 9 bills in the past 15 years that would allow weekend voting, and every single one has been defeated by republicans.
That's why you can't vote on the weekend.
Anonymous
04/18/2026 07:33
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:NP. It is weird we don't hold elections on Saturdays, when school is not in session. People who can't do Saturdays for whatever reason could still do early voting, but you'd eliminate the school disruption.
Great idea. Guess what party has fought for decades to prevent that from happening, because obviously it would mean more voter turnout?
Anonymous
04/17/2026 18:47
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
not enough for the number of precincts.Anonymous wrote:To be fair to OP, there could potentialy be other places used for polling - libraries, fire stations, government centers, etc.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:40
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.
All of this!
Anonymous
04/17/2026 13:51
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
Anonymous wrote:Why can’t voting either take place after school hours, like 5-8pm or on a Saturday or Sunday like other countries. Why do schools have to close for voting?
because our voting laws don't have common sense things like voting on the weekends. And 3 hours? that is a terrible idea.
I get why schools are closed on Election Day with the random strangers wandering around.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 13:01
Subject: Why do fcps schools close for voting
To be fair to OP, there could potentialy be other places used for polling - libraries, fire stations, government centers, etc.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 12:39
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 can vote by mail or go to separate voting location. F them.