At Least 20,000 Peruvian’s Expected to Embark on Falls Church for Elections

More than 20,000 registered Peruvian voters will embark on the City of Falls Church Sunday, June 5, to vote in a run-off election between presidential candidates Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala. Polls will be set up at and Mary Ellen Henderson Middle schools from 7 a.m. through 7 p.m.

Consul General of Peru in Washington, D.C., Cesar Jordan Palomino, said this is a run-off election between the two most voted candidates to define who’s going to be the president of Peru for the next five years. He said 20 million Peruvians will vote Sunday, with 750,000 voting outside Peru with an estimated 370,000 Peruvians in the United States casting votes.

“Our registered voters in the area are 28,000,” Palomino said. “In the first voting on April 10th, almost 15,000 attended and, due to the importance of this run-off election we expect about 20,000 this time.”

Traffic is expected to be an issue for 12-hours Sunday. Both City of Falls Church and Fairfax County police departments will work to control traffic around the two schools that sit adjacent from each other. Falls Church City Public Schools spokesman John Brett said the two schools were rented out for the election as they were for the April general elections. Seve Padilla, also of FCCPS, said the Peruvians reached out to FCCPS at the beginning of the school year inquiring about the April 10th election. FCCPS was in talks for several months before that was confirmed. Following Sunday’s election, Palomino will fly to Peru to deliver a hard copy of the votes to the Peruvian government. The votes, however, will be done electronically and counted before he travels to Peru Monday morning.

Palomino said voters from Virginia will vote in Mason High while voters from Maryland, Washington, D.C., West Virginia, Delaware and Kentucky will all vote in Henderson Middle. He said a lot of planning went into selecting the two schools as polling places.

“Schools were selected as they form a very convenient unit.  The two big school buildings allow us to separate our two main flows of voters,” Palomino said. “We also considered that the state is located inside the Beltway, with highway and Metro accessibility and parking availability. Last, but not least, the wonderful school’s staff and local police have previous experience in our 2006 elections, with very positive results.”

According to a press release from City of Falls Church Spokeswoman Barbara Gordon: Drivers to the city are advised that parking in shopping center parking lots are for customers only and cars may be towed if parked illegally.