Virginia State Code defines most of what towns, cities or counties are allowed to do -- including sources and rates of tax revenues or when to conduct local elections. These election laws were amended, now resulting in numerous communities considering aspects relative to holding November elections.
Here in the New River Valley moving the vote was first examined by the Town of Blacksburg. The mayor's initial proposal would have aligned town and presidential elections (even-numbered years). Presidential elections clearly garner the highest level of interest as measured by the number of people who register to vote and then actually show up at the polls. This aroused some opposition, so a community task force continued the discussion with Blacksburg's council voting to proceed with the change during odd-numbered years.
Over in Christiansburg, former councilman Steve Huppert brought the matter up during a regular meeting in January, 2008 and it was a question 2008 council candidates responded to. Supposedly, there was a consensus among council to "wait and see" although this agreement wasn't a public process.
Huppert subsequently lost his seat in the 2008 elections, but newcomer Henry Showalter kept the issue alive. A petition to put the question to move the vote directly in front of Christiansburg voters was quickly certified and then overwhelmingly approved by Christiansburg voters this Nov. 3. Were this to have been manipulated to a May ballot (with significantly smaller voter participation), the outcome could have been very different.
Citizens in the Town of Pulaski are also seeing a council reluctant to address this question, where over in the City of Radford some elected officials are pressing the discussion. It's become a fairly common topic in localities across the state, enough to warrant a mention in a national newspaper which incorrectly predicted strong opposition to Christiansburg's referendum.
Opponents of such a change talk about these being "special" -- yet the one thing that makes them stand out is exceptionally low voter turn-out. May elections often change the polling address to a single, centralized location which confuses some people. Contributing to this confusion is that "elections" is typically thought of as something that happens in November.
Opponents also worry that local nonpartisan elections could become partisan, yet that is addressed by the Virginia State Code and how the locality's charter is written. As someone else pointed out, in small towns it's not like you don't know which way a candidate leans even in nonpartisan races.
Supporters argue these issues are addressed when the election date and charters are changed -- Blacksburg was very efficient in taking care of all related technicalities and did experience both a strong candidate pool and higher voter turn-out. Other benefits are reduced costs and burdens to underfunded voter registrar offices and volunteers.
Voting is a primary responsibility of citizens. Elected representatives determine issues that affect individual quality of life and economic health, including setting tax rates and fees or how public funds are spent. Voting is one of the few chances individuals have to participate in choosing the decision makers.
Kudos to Terry Ellen Carter, Steve Huppert, Carol Lindstrom and Henry Showalter and a handful of others for their work to "move the vote" in Christiansburg. They just made this responsiblity a bit easier and less costly. One could even say their efforts have made this "less taxing" for this community while improving accountability at a local level.