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The Charlottesville Democratic Committee

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January 6 Reorganization Meeting: Opportunities for New People with New Ideas!

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Simple (childish) clipart drawing of a blonde angel hovering with 2 pairs of wings and wearing a blue skirt, top, and shoes.Our every-other-year election meeting (“Reorganizational Mass Meeting”) will be on January 6 at 2pm at Carver Recreation Center (the doors open at 1pm and participants must be seated before the doors are closed and locked at 2pm). Here’s what we’ll be doing there:

  1. Elect precinct representatives, who then choose a chair or co-chairs for each precinct.
  2. The just-elected precinct representatives and ex officio members, who together make up the Charlottesville Democratic Committee (usually referred to as “the Full Committee”), then elect the following Executive Officers for two-year terms: Chair (or Co-Chairs), Vice Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer.

Jason Vandever (Treasurer) and Nancy Damon (Vice Chair) have agreed to continue in their roles, but John McLaren (Chair) and Mary Ann Harris (Secretary) will be stepping down from those roles (but staying involved!) when their terms expire. Layperson descriptions of these various offices are here; descriptions of the precinct roles (and officer roles) are in our bylaws. Dan Doernberg (Communications Chair, an appointed position) is also stepping down at the end of his term.

Cville Dems C-Ville Weekly display ad. Under the header "What Do We Want?" are stylized images for environment, economic opportunity, diversity, equity and education. Under the second header "How Will We Get It?" are photos of Donald Trump, and Bob Good with red diagonal slashmarks through their faces and a photo of a ballot box. Below is text describing when and where the Cville Dems' January 6, 2024 Reorganizational Meeting is being held and how it works, and the Dems logo is given at the bottom with the note saying that this ad was paid for by the Charlottesville Democratic Committee.These “changing of the guard” elections are critically important for every organization, including ours; it’s always important to have fresh faces and new ideas in the leadership mix.

Graphic of a sign with a red background and white letters reading "Now Hiring — Apply Today"To put it bluntly, we need you! We all know that the 2024 election will be a struggle for the future of this country. If we don’t grow the party (bring in new people with new energy and ideas), we’ll have to live with a re-elected President Trump and more MAGA extremists in all branches of government. If that’s not an acceptable future to you, then please rise to the challenge and play a part!

  • If you’re on our mailing list but haven’t ever gotten formally involved, this pivotal election year would be a really good time to “wade in” just a bit! Two of the ways you might do this (neither a big time commitment):
    • become a precinct representative, which gives you a voice in shaping the party, and plugs you into our volunteer network and all the practical ways you can work for good
    • join one of our teams (e.g. Communications, Voter Registration, Voter Protection, etc.).
  • If you’re already a little bit involved, this incredibly consequential election year is a good time to commit just a bit more by taking on one of our open leadership positions.
  • If you know people who you think could make good contributions to the Cville Dems, encourage them to come check us out (all of our meetings are public, including January 6). Anyone who lives in and is registered to vote in Charlottesville is eligible to stand for election to become a member of our committee and have a voice in shaping our local party’s actions and positions on issues.

If you’d like to get more information or have a question about a role you might consider taking, please contact John McLaren as soon as possible at cvilledemschair@gmail.com and he’ll be happy to explain all.

REPORTS: Executive & Full Committee Meetings (11/27/2023)

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The Executive Committee met and, after a few minutes of discussion, approved January 6, 2pm as the date and time for the biennial Reorganizational Mass Meeting (location to be announced soon). That meeting adjourned immediately and the Full Committee meeting began, with these highlights:

  • Jim Nix’s “after-action report” on the 2023 election (see below).
  • Brainstorming about 2024 (e.g. how to reach younger voters, who has announced or may announce soon as a candidate to run against Bob Good, Republicans outstaffing us at polling locations on Election Day and Early Voting).
  • Every two years, in accordance with overarching DPVA rules and our bylaws, we elect new officers. This is happening on Saturday, January 6, at 2:00pm (location TBA). See above for more on this important function, but now’s the time to start considering what role you want to play in defending democracy in 2024!
  • Fifth District report by Erin Monaghan: determined Democrats from each county and city in the Fifth gathered in Lynchburg at the district-wide 9/30 Extravaganza to make new friends and honor community contributors from the District. Senator Creigh Deeds and former congressional candidate Dr. Cameron Webb were speakers, and former Congressional candidate Josh Throneburg gave the evening’s invocation and dinner blessing. Charlottesville was well-represented! The Charlottesville community contributor honored was Leah Puryear (nominated by Erin). Erin brought back for Leah a certificate of recognition and small token of the Fifth District Committee’s gratitude and esteem for her career of service to the youth of Charlottesville, and to the entire city as an appointed City Council member.
  • Albemarle Dems’ representative Madison Cummings thanked the many Cville Dems who (1) came out to their pre-election canvassing event featuring Senator Warner and (2) helped in various ways get Allison Spillman and other County candidates elected.There will not be a December meeting, so the next meeting will be the 1/6 biennial Reorganizational Mass Meeting.

Post-Election Summary Data from the Electoral Board

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Jim Nix was kind enough to provide this data about the November 2023 election and a write-up from his presentation at our 11/27 meeting:

Spreadsheet screenshot showing each precinct and the percentages of registered voters and when they votedSpreadsheet screenshot showing each precinct and the percentages of registered voters and when they voted

Turnout for this election was much higher than expected at 41% of active registered voters. Early voting was slow until the final week before the election but ended up almost the same as in the June primary when Election Day voting, and Early Voting were both around 4000.

The chief election officials at each precinct report turnout at 9am, 1pm, and 4pm, and experience has shown that the city-wide total at the 9am report is generally 20% of the turnout for the day with 50% voting by 1pm. We were expecting 800 by 9am, and when that report was nearly 1400, we knew that we needed to print additional ballots.

Another surprise was the high volume of same-day registrations. There were 771 provisional ballots cast, nearly all of them for same-day registration. Of these, 759 were approved, surprisingly more than the 673 in Albemarle County. Only 6 were rejected for being in the wrong precinct, a big improvement over last November when, in the first election with this option, there were 28 out of 950.

Voter registration has declined since the last presidential election, falling from over 33,000 to little more than 30,000 active voters. Registration normally peaks in Presidential election years, declining as voters move and students graduate. Voter registration must be a high priority this coming year.

With a Democratic majority in both houses of the General Assembly, no significant changes in election law are expected for the 2024 elections. There will be three elections next year: a Presidential primary March 5, a U.S. House and Senate primary June 18, and the Presidential general election November 5. Early voting in the Presidential primary will begin on January 19.

We need to recruit additional election officials, especially for the November general election. Republicans are in especially short supply, and we are required by law to ensure that both parties are represented among the election workers at each precinct.

Treasurer’s Report (11/2023)

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A treasure chest overflowing with gold coinsJason Vandever couldn’t make the November meeting, so he’s passed on this summary report:

The Committee filed its 3rd Quarter financial report with the State Board of Elections in October. All financial filings for the Committee can be found on the SBE’s website here. The Committee ended the quarter with a balance of $30,071 and is on track to finish the calendar year with a slight surplus over the projected budget, primarily due to lower than expected November election expenses. A new biennial budget will be prepared in January for the newly-formed Executive Committee’s approval.

Trump and Republicans Continue Embrace of Fascism and Autocracy

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Two concentration camp guards, dressed in gray uniforms reminiscent of World War II German soldiers, are at Trump Camp #74695 guarding hundreds of people imprisoned behind a barbed wire fence. One guard says to the other "This camp's for all the vermin who compared The Boss to Hitler"

  • “Former president Donald Trump has crossed a red line into championing what we’d recognize as full-flung fascism if it came from the mouth of a foreign leader. It demonstrates just how inured we’ve become to Trump’s despicable despotic rhetoric that he’s not ostracized or treated like a renegade to the US Constitution and American democracy. Instead, he remains the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.” Boston Globe, 11/14/23
  • “It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one. The US then “would resemble a banana republic”, a University of Virginia law professor [Ed– Saikrishna Prakash] told the Washington Post when it revealed these schemes. Almost as troubling, two New York Times stories outlined Trump’s autocratic plans to put loyal lawyers in key posts and limit the independence of federal agencies. The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities.” The Guardian, 11/09/23
  • “In Ohio, after voters on Tuesday approved an amendment to the state constitution protecting abortion rights, Republicans are calling the amendment “ambiguous” and trying to remove it from the jurisdiction of the courts. They want to make the legislature—which they dominate thanks to gerrymandering—the only body that can decide what the measure means. They are openly trying to override the decision of the voters. In Washington, Republicans have empowered Christian extremist Mike Johnson (R-LA) to lead the House of Representatives as speaker, and today we learned that outside his office he displays a flag associated with the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) network that wants to place the United States government under the control of right-wing Christians.” Prof. Heather Cox Richardson, 11/10/2023