With two fresh faces joining the Christiansburg Town Council this Tuesday, one immediately asked for an item brought up by former Councilman Steve Huppert in January to be revisited.
Per an invitation by new Councilman Henry Showalter, Montgomery County Registrar Randy Wertz made a very brief presentation to council about the former costs of local elections, and contrasted these to what future costs could be due to Christiansburg only continuing with May balloting. He also pointed out that at some near point in the future the town is expected to exceed 25,000 residents, which will require new voter districts and the candidate's filing financial reports while noting such a change is beneficial to his office yet remains the town's decision.
Christiansburg Council elections typically draw less than 11% of the town's nearly 13,000 registered voters, with Mayoral elections seeing numbers higher than those for just council members. Mr. Wertz stated there was a significant "education" issue relative to local elections, ranging from how these have greater impact on voters than national elections, to who is running and where voting takes place as polling places are different than those for November elections. He noted the current Presidential race was expected to draw 85 to 90% of all registered Montgomery County voters to the polls, but local and state gubernatorial elections had more direct effect on citizens.
As the Mayor thanked the Registrar for his time and prepared to move on to the next agenda item, Councilman Showalter asked other members to share their thoughts on the topic -- especially since it was a current topic throughout the state, possibly relative to the extremely low voter turnout, and an item discussed during each of the recent four candidate forums. He had also ensured each member had been provided with an extensive local review on the topic prior to this meeting.
Councilman Mike Barber restated his strong opposition to moving town elections, stating the costs were worth "keeping our elections in May." He also expressed the opinion that if people cared about the town, they would bother to come vote. If they didn't care, they wouldn't and moving the elections could enable "the uninformed" to cast ballots. "With as many signs as we all put out, if people didn't know there was an election they must have been in hibernation," he said.
The Mayor asked how many other localities had made this change and noted when this was previously discussed, the consensus had been to wait and see what happened in Blacksburg. The Mayor also inquired about having the issue placed on the ballot as a referendum and was told any citizen could seek the necessary number of required signatures and have this done at any time.
Changing town elections would have to occur by early winter to be effected before spring elections, and the Registrar stated the trend was to move elections to odd numbered years to avoid having these at the same time as Presidential elections.
Councilman Ernie Wade asked the Registrar if there was any correlation between low voter turn-out and citizen satisfaction. Mr. Wertz indicated there was no data to support that theory, and a major disadvantage was voters become accustomed to going to one place to cast ballots and getting confused when the location changed.
There was some discussions about town elections being nonpartisan, as are school board seats, but people "seeing" a council member's preferred political party at the primaries or by what table they go to. It was noted these types of observations were already present.
The Mayor also noted the town attorney had been asked to research the issue, as any request to make such a change must be approved by the General Assembly -- as do the establishment of new voter precincts. This had been done and the Mayor asked the information be updated and redistributed to council.
Other recent voter related news articles include the following:
What do you think, dear readers? Are there steps council should take to reach out to 89% of the registered voters who skip town elections, providing more voter education and opportunities for community participation? Should this matter be a referendum and decided by voters? If so, should the decision be made by just 7% of the town's residents or by our elected council members?