Early Voting in DC Election Begins Monday

Election day is still 15 days away, but people who will either be too busy November 4 or too impatient to wait can start casting their ballots in DC’s general election starting today. The city’s first early-voting site opened Monday morning at the Board of Elections office at 441 Fourth Street, Northwest. Naturally, it’s already being used as a campaign backdrop, with independent mayoral candidate David Catania appearing outside the building with a gaggle of “Democrats for David” who say they’ll vote against their own party’s nominee, Muriel Bowser.

Besides mayor, DC voters will also cast ballots for the city’s first-ever elected attorney general, seven Council members (though only one, a non-partisan at-large seat, is considered competitive), a slew of advisory neighborhood commissioners, and Initiative 71, which, if passed, would legalize possession and home cultivation of marijuana. Full details for all the candidates running for office are in the ballot guides the Board of Elections sent to District voters last week with the now-infamous upside-down flags. (The Board assures residents that the content of the guides is accurate, if not the cover art.)

The Board of Elections will be open for voting every day, except Sundays, from 8:30 AM to 7 PM through November 1. Eight additional early-voting locations are scheduled to open Saturday at these locations:

• Ward 1: Columbia Heights Community Center, 1480 Girard Street, Northwest
• Ward 3: Chevy Chase Community Center, 5601 Connecticut Avenue, Northwest
• Ward 4: Takoma Park Recreation Center, 300 Van Buren Street, Northwest
• Ward 5: Turkey Thicket Recreation Center, 1100 Michigan Avenue, Northeast
• Ward 6: King Greenleaf Recreation Center, 201 N Street, Southwest
• Ward 6: Sherwood Recreation Center, 640 10th Street, Northeast
• Ward 7: Dorothy I Height-Benning Library, 3935 Benning Road, Northeast
• Ward 8: Malcolm X Elementary School, 1351 Alabama Avenue, Southeast

Voters can use any of the early-voting sites to cast a ballot before Election Day. The deadline to file new voter registrations passed October 10, but people who missed it or need to update their information can do so in person at one of the early sites or at their assigned polling place on November 4. You can find your Election-Day voting location with this directory built by Google and the Voting Information Project:

Find Benjamin Freed on Twitter at @brfreed.

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.