Falls Church Woman Beats Clock Before Polls Close

Monia Chehata made it to the Falls Church Community Center – where the Ward 3 polling location is – just after 6 p.m. Tuesday after a flight from Tunisia.

Chehata was in Tunisia handling family business and tried to get cast an absentee ballot with the United States Embassy there but ran into some issues. The alternative, fly back to the U.S. and vote in person. To accomplish that, she left there at 1 a.m. EST, had her flight to France delayed an hour and made a connection there into Dulles International Airport at 4:20 p.m.

After going through customs at the airport, she made it to Falls Church just after 6 p.m.

“I wanted to make sure I was here,” she said. “I was scared because my flight was an hour late.”

With the polls now closed in Virginia, David Bjerke, general registrar for the City of Falls Church, said he expects this year’s voter turnout to surpass the more than 82 percent of the voters who turned out in 2008. Just before the polls closed, Bjerke said 6,851 Falls Church voters had gone to the polls.