Chesapeake council votes against moving elections to odd-numbered years
After three hours of public comment and lengthy discussion, Chesapeake City Council voted down a measure to move local elections from even years to odd ones.
The council voted 5-4 against the proposal.
More than 80 speakers either had their comments read into the record by email or addressed the council by phone. No members of the public were allowed into City Hall due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Some residents in support said they feared local issues and candidates would be overshadowed by national ones, and dismissed claims of voter suppression. Others urged the council to vote the ordinance down because more people show up at the ballot box in even years.
With the proposal rejected, Chesapeake would be on its way to having local elections for mayor, School Board and City Council in the fall during even years as opposed to May. A bill signed by Gov. Ralph Northam last month forces cities and towns across the commonwealth to move elections to November starting next year.
To some elected officials in Chesapeake, that was an overreach and an example of state leaders in Richmond “bullying” localities because they could. Mayor Rick West, along with at least one other city in Virginia, Fredericksburg, said the option to go to an odd-year cycle could only happen before the law went into effect in July. He has decried Richmond’s reach into local issues. Before taking a final vote, West said voter suppression was the “furthest thing from my mind” when drafting the ordinance.
“My issue has been, will be and is always about local control,” West said. “To do the things that we know what’s best for our citizens.”
After moving to approve the ordinance, Councilman Robert Ike said that if the city has local elections in even years in November “any issue we have in Chesapeake is going to pale in comparison to national issues.”
“I’m not sure how flooding and recycling and garbage pick up would match up against Chinese aggression, Iranian nukes or our southern border crisis,” Ike said.
He added that it would increase campaign costs for candidates.
Ike also dismissed claims of the ordinance being tied to voter suppression, saying “Jim crow was voter suppression. This is not voter suppression.”
He said that if the state legislature thought this was voter suppression they would have moved their elections to November of even years but they didn’t because state candidates and governor wouldn’t be able to get their message out during a presidential campaign like the country saw between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
“If our Democrat-controlled legislature felt this was a great idea they would have moved their own elections there but they didn’t and you know why,” Ike said.
Councilwoman Ella Ward, who has long fought to push May elections to November, said she felt hurt and saddened the city had reached the point of holding a vote on the issue. She pointed to experiences in her past having to drink out of water fountains designated for people of color and having to ride on the back of buses with her family. She also pointed to how people had to pay poll taxes before voting.
“Voter suppression is real,” Ward said. “I’m happy that maybe none of you have ever had to experience it, but I think you ought to have the empathy, the sympathy of others who have experienced it, your colleagues and I’m one of them. It hurts my heart that you think so little of me that you would do this.”
Those council members voting against the shift were Steve Best, Matt Hamel, Susan Vitale, Ella Ward, and John de Triquet. Mayor Rick West, who first floated the idea of the shift last month, voted in favor along with Debbie Ritter, Don Carey and Robert Ike.
Best said he couldn’t support the motion in part because there would be so many candidates on the ballot in the odd-year cycle.
“I believe with the stark difference in the issues of a federal election versus a local City Council or School Board elections that our citizens can parse out those local issues and separate them very effectively from the national issues,” Best said.
Chesapeake’s local officials are currently elected in May of even years, but a bill that was signed into law by Gov. Ralph Northam last month forces cities and towns across the commonwealth to move elections to November starting next year.
West requested the ordinance to be drawn up and added to the meeting’s agenda, drawing criticism from some residents who say it’s a form of voter suppression as odd-year elections in Virginia have lower voter turnout than even-year congressional and presidential elections. Virginia chooses its governor, legislature and other state officials during odd years.
West has said having local and state elections line up makes sense because city issues are more closely tied to Richmond than to Washington, D.C.
The debate over when to have elections has longstanding partisan overtones nationally. Higher turnout tends to favor Democrats, and many on the left say Republican-leaning officials like to have elections in May — or in odd-numbered years — so lower turnout will favor the GOP. West has said accusations of political motivations are untrue and unfair and he simply wants Chesapeake elections to get more attention.
Ahead of the meeting, both the Chesapeake branch of the NAACP and League of Women Voters of South Hampton Roads came out in opposition to the proposed shift.
In a letter to the mayor and council, the NAACP branch president, Helena Dodson, and vice president 1st chair Camron Phillips wrote, “there is a long history of odd year state elections in Virginia that are associated with voter suppression and the infamous Byrd political machine. Even year elections in Virginia have higher turnout.”
Gordon Rago, 757-446-2601, gordon.rago@pilotonline.com
