by Dick Hall-Sizemore
I just finished my first stint as an election official. I was surprised by some aspects but, upon retrospect, I should not have been surprised.
Voters came in steadily throughout the day, with some backups occurring. The biggest push was between 5:15 and 6:15, when the line was much longer. But it cleared fairly quickly and voters did not have to wait more than about 15 minutes at the most.
About 1,350 folks voted, which constituted a turnout of 35 percent of the active registered voters in the precinct.
Some of that turnout undoubtedly was the result of the failure of voters to know about, and understand, the changes wrought by redistricting. The precinct’s candidates for the House and Senate in the General Assembly were unopposed Democrats. However, Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant (R) had represented the area for many years in the General Assembly. Redistricting put her in a new district which did not include this precinct. She was being challenged by Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg (D), who has represented the precinct in the House of Delegates for several years. That contest is one of the key ones in the state and there has been heavy advertising on TV by both candidates. Many voters were puzzled and frustrated when they found that neither Dunnavant nor VanValkenburg was on their ballots. I overheard one man lamenting that he had come to the polls specifically to vote against one of those candidates.
The confusion extended to the local offices. Ever since I moved to the area almost 40 years ago, this area had been in the Brookland magisterial district of Henrico. After the most recent county redistricting the area ended up in the Fairfield magisterial district. That surprised and confused many people. I heard several say they did not recognize any of the names on the ballot. One wonders what criteria they used to decide whom to vote for.
It was plain that Virginia voters are reflecting the national trend of seeing elections strictly through a partisan lens. A common complaint was that the candidates for local office were not identified by party. Numerous voters asked us to identify the candidates on the ballot by party. We told them we did not know (which was not true). Adding to the confusion was the designation of the two candidates for the General Assembly as Democrats. Because no Republicans were running against them, no candidate on the ballot was identified by an “R” after their name. Many voters seemed to assume that this meant all the candidates for other offices were Democrats. One man asked me for a “Republican” ballot.
This lack of basic knowledge about the election brought home to me something that I had realized years ago but had forgotten: Not all Americans live and breathe politics and the legislature as I (and many on this blog) do. They may follow the Presidential race or even the gubernatorial race, but many have so much going on in their regular lives that they have neither the time nor inclination to pay attention to such nuances as changes in voting district lines.
All in all, it was quiet in our precinct. In Henrico, the school board elections have not generated the controversy they have in other jurisdictions. Voters were pleasant and all seemed eager to participate in the democratic process. There were two or three same-day registrations and some instances in which there were problems with the registrations. All of these were handled smoothly by the chief election officer. There were several young people casting their votes for the first time and the elections officers loudly proclaimed that fact and the assembled voters and elections workers gave the new voters a big round of applause. Next year will probably not be as quiet.
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