There are important discussions going on about where how we vote in the city that will impact a large fraction of the city’s voters in 2023 and thereafter.
Precinct Redistricting
City of Charlottesville Registrar Taylor Yowell and Electoral Board member Ann Hemenway shared the City’s draft proposal for reformatting Charlottesville’s precincts with the goals of evening out the number of voters in each precinct and increasing functionality, i.e. walkability, parking, etc. Around 40% of city voters would be in a new precinct. Alumni Hall (high-traffic accessibility problems) and Tonsler (inadequate space and parking) precincts would be replaced by Charlottesville High School and Jackson-Via.
Update on Ranked Choice Voting (RCV)
Delegate Sally Hudson explained that, due to electronic voting equipment limitations, City Council won’t have the ability to use RCV in the 6/2023 primary, but could authorize its use starting as soon as the 11/2023 general election. Sally asked the Executive Committee to consider having the Full Committee pass a resolution telling City Council whether we support or oppose an ordinance authorizing RCV for City Council elections.
It’s likely that the Cville Dems will need to have additional meetings and/or communications re: RCV and regarding the process of nominating candidates soon.
Sally shared a document with some of her perspectives on RCV:
Reflections on the November General Election
Josh Throneburg reported that he and his team are doing an after-election report to analyze what worked well and what didn’t; Josh is committed to staying involved to try to build in all of those areas for the future.
The campaign’s budget was much smaller than it had been for the previous two Democratic campaigns in the district, and so the campaign couldn’t reach as many voters as it needed to. Josh also indicated that the party needs to build up its infrastructure if we want to have success in the Fifth; some counties barely have a functioning Democratic committee, and the party’s network in rural areas is weak. His team is creating some briefing materials and other infrastructure so our next 5th District candidate won’t have to start from ground zero as his campaign did.
[As co-chairs Dashad and John previously posted on social media a million “thank yous” to Josh Throneburg, his staff, his family, volunteers & donors. We didn’t win, but we put out a positive message of Democratic values, compassion, and common sense. Josh has our party’s gratitude and great respect, and we salute him for leading our good fight!]
Post-Election Day Polling Place Update
Electoral Board member Jim Nix reported that 53% of active voters voted in the past election, only down 3% from last year’s gubernatorial race. The new electronic poll books worked very well. Same-day registration/voting on election day was a major change this year: 950 provisional ballots were cast (901 were certified and counted), nearly all were done on election day itself and, as expected, most were from students. This was even more provisional ballots than expected and led to a lot of stress on Carver and Venable poll workers, issues that will be addressed.
