What are single-member districts and why might they be on local ballots this year?

Nora O'Neill, Gainesville Sun
Updated ·4 min read

Alachua County commissioners are looking to eliminate single-member districts by creating a ballot measure for 2024 that would ask voters to decide whether they want to keep the single-member districts 51.5% of them voted for in 2022 or move back to an at-large system.

The board of commissioners voted unanimously earlier in April to have staff draft ballot language that would give voters the chance to reverse the 2022 decision. The commissioners will need to vote on the ballot language before July.

“The folks in my district are very upset. They're mostly upset because they actually do not have a voice in this upcoming election,” said Commissioner Ken Cornell. “It's been unanimous, really, they would like to have a voice and they don't have a voice.”

Evelyn Foxx, president of the NAACP Alachua County branch, stands in from the the county's administration building to push back against misleading mailers that tells voters the organization and other Black leaders support single-member districts.
Evelyn Foxx, president of the NAACP Alachua County branch, stands in from the the county's administration building to push back against misleading mailers that tells voters the organization and other Black leaders support single-member districts.

More: Alachua County Commission exploring single-member districts going back to voters

More: NAACP threatens to sue Stafford Jones' PAC over mailers. PAC says quotes are fair game

What are single-member districts?

Under the county’s previous at-large system, county residents were allowed to vote for each of the five seats that make up the Board of County Commissioners. With single-member districts, residents only cast votes for the commissioners that live in their own district.

In Alachua County, supporters of single-member districts say it provides more opportunity for more moderate and conservative voices to be elected to the County Commission. The board has been historically been dominated by Democratic leaders. Opponents, however, say single-member districts are anti-democratic since all members make decisions for all county residents.

How did Alachua County vote in 2022?

In 2022, 51.5% of Alachua County voters cast ballots in favor of single-member districts. The 2024 election will be the first time the new system will have an impact on who residents can vote for.

“Dirty politics” of 2022’s election cycle

Given the small margin by which single-member districts passed, many critics of the change have pointed to a series of questionable tactics by Republicans as the reason for the outcome.

In 2022, some said the “blatantly false” mailers were sent out to residents by a Republican PAC that used quotes from Commissioner Charles “Chuck” Chestnut, former Commissioner Rodney Long, as well as local NAACP leaders speaking in favor of single-member districts. Those people say their quotes were taken entirely out of context and that they did not support the change to the county's districts.

“They lied on the national NAACP to the point that I believe that the national NAACP has filed a lawsuit against the people who put out all the fraudulent literature. They lied on two or three commissioners and former commissioners, using their pictures to say they support it when they did not,” Rep. Yvonne Hayes-Hinson said in a recent interview with the Gainesville Sun. “Single-member district was not something anyone wanted except one group... No one else wanted it. Also, they had to lie to get people to vote for it.”

At the time, Cornell, who has since supported getting single-member districts back on the ballot, argued that Sen. Keith Perry and those closest to him were running afoul of campaign laws.

"Senator Perry is using his office to once again threaten and intimidate Alachua County while pushing his own agenda through dark money, Tallahassee and local PACs," he said.

How did single-member districts get back on the ballot?

Though the County Commission did not schedule a conversation about the districts for its meeting, dozens of speakers rallied during citizen’s comment to express their disappointment with single-member districts and to ask the commissioners to put it back on the ballot.

Speakers included residents, NAACP members as well as the Alachua County Labor Coalition. Eventually, a motion was made to draft ballot language and was unanimously passed by the commission.

But the April meeting wasn’t the first time the idea of bringing single-member districts back up for a vote had been floated.

Alachua County leaders began exploring the possibility of placing the single-member district ballot measure back up for a vote nearly two years ago in December 2022. At the time, a special meeting was held where Cornell asked the county attorney to draft a memo for the public that explains the three ways an item can be placed on a ballot. One of those ways is to have a majority of support from the County Commission.

Despite major pushback on single-member districts from elected democrats, an analysis from the Gainesville Sun shows that under the new system the seats on the commission are likely to still be held by a majority of Democrats.

Hinson said getting rid of single-member districts is about cultivating a unified community.

“What we had was a commission where everybody served everybody in an equitable manner,” Hinson said. “Now what we're about to have, and we've already seen fragments of it, what we are about to have is a single member district where each commissioner has to fight for their district and their district only, and that is not the kind of community we want here, it just divides us even further.”

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Single-member districts may be brought back to a vote this election