Recapping the town election

Robert Legge
Published: May 21, 2008

As most everyone knows, three incumbents and one former member were returned to the Culpeper Town Council as a result of the May 6 election.

The issue of illegal immigration, while paramount to some, did not capture the imagination of most voters as it had in local elections in towns like Herndon a few years ago. A year ago, emotions on the issue were higher, rhetoric more shrill and disinformation more prevalent. The outcome might have been different had the election been held then.

Some might conclude that support for a draconian stance on anti-illegal immigration is still strong because Jerry Beckett, leader of the anti-illegal immigrant group Help Protect Culpeper, narrowly missed winning. But I think his strong showing wasn’t so much due to support for his primary issue as much as it was the time, effort and skill he personally put into his own campaign.

But if there were strong support for the HPC agenda, it would follow that supporters would learn which candidates closely identified with that agenda and vote for every one of them.

That didn’t happen.

One of those four candidates, William Platts, received only 176 votes. Surely some of his voters also chose candidates other than the HPC4 — perhaps 140 of the 176 voted the straight slate. That would mean that less than 2 percent of all registered voters were so vitally concerned about illegal immigration that they bothered to come out and vote for the group of candidates most associated with a tough stand on that issue.

So while there was plenty of incendiary rhetoric on illegal immigration by a small number of vocal supporters during the past year and a half, electoral support for that view is virtually non-existent.

Now, you could also say the real winner of this election was “apathy.” In what was thought to be a highly anticipated election, only 17.8 percent showed up. Some even speculated that a higher turnout could have changed the outcome of the race.

Many town voters commute to far away jobs, and to vote absentee requires they be gone more than 11 hours of the day. Three bills were introduced in the past General Assembly session that would have made it easier to vote absentee, but all were defeated. Most bills aimed at making voting an easier process are viewed as pro-Democratic Party and doomed to defeat.

But in recent years, several towns and cities — Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and Gordonsville among others — have opted to hold municipal elections in November instead of May. That saves money and gets a higher turnout. In the November 2004 election, 3,469 Culpeper town voters went to the polls, almost three times as many as the May 6 election.

Another option is a voting by mail, which is done in Oregon. This saves taxpayers’ money, voters’ time, increases turnout and includes built-in safeguards to ensure accuracy. Eventually, I’d hope to see voting by Internet. If they can do secure credit card transactions, they can do secure voting too.

Councilman Steve Jenkins lamented the low turnout and wondered if Saturday voting wouldn’t increase turnout. Actually, Sunday is the most popular day for elections among Western democracies. Even Italy, home of the Vatican, votes on Sunday. Probably wouldn’t fly here.

This vote was also a repudiation of Councilman Jenkins, an HPC supporter who signed all the petitions of the HPC4 as well as circulated two of them. This is called “burning your bridges” and will further isolate Jenkins on the council, making it that much more difficult for him to advance his legislative initiatives.

The issue of illegal immigration is not likely to go away any time soon and will probably still be a campaign issue in the next council and mayoral election in 2010. But I’d be willing to bet that the townspeople again will not be one-issue voters.

Candidates identified with that one issue would probably do better at the ballot box next time if they use the next two years to work more on community projects, attend more council meetings and work with the current council to improve life in Culpeper.

Robert Legge is an independent columnist and resident of Madison County. His column appears on Thursday. E-mail