Updated: Monday, August 3 at 9:57 a.m.
The D.C. Board of Elections will open at least 80 in-person polling locations for this November’s general election, DCist reported Monday.
D.C. officials initially announced in June that they planned to open 40 in-person voting centers and provide mail-in ballots to all registered and qualified voters, but last week Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed a bill to increase the number of voting centers to 80, according to DCist. In a letter sent to Bowser and Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen Monday, Michael Bennett, the chair of the D.C. Board of Elections, committed to opening at least 80 voting centers with more centers located east of the Anacostia River, DCist reported.
Bennett said in the letter that all voting centers will be open to D.C. residents and will open two early voting centers in each of the Districts’ eight wards, along with “super vote centers” in facilities like the Capital One Arena, according to DCist.
The changes come after voters struggled to get absentee ballots and waited for hours in line at in-person voting centers for the June primary election.
“I feel compelled to state that, but for the current COVID-19 Health Emergency declared for the District of Columbia, the nation, and the entire world, the DCBOE would be conducting the November 2020 election as it has successfully for many election cycles,” Bennett said in the letter.