Taxpayers Will Pay Thousands For Local Election

The last Fredericksburg elections in May 2010 cost $13,733.48 to operate, but the State Board of Elections has the authority to recoup the costs of any elections not held in November and it's likely that city residents will have to pay for this coming election in May.

"I would like to explore the possibility of shifting our City election cycle as has already been passed as State law regarding the State absorbing local election costs in the future and understand what the legal impacts would be to such a shift if we were to make it, since we now have a cost for an election outlined in the attachment by the City registrar," Councilman Fred Howe wrote to city attorney Kathleen Dooley.

Howe asked about the legal ramifications of having an election cycle aligned with the state gubernatorial elections instead of with federal and presidential elections because of the concern that local elections, which already suffer from extreme apathy, would be ignored even more.

"The Virginia Governor’s election cycle would on the surface seem to be a much better fit for our local governmental elections, since we would be aligned with State issues of budgeting transportation and school funding impacts to mention a couple, which are priority concerns we face managing local government budgets," Howe wrote.

Juanita D. Pitchford, the city's general registrar, said she is in favor of moving city elections to a November cycle because of the economical reasons.

"Also, our voting machines would not be utilized as much – reducing the need for additional maintenance," she said.

Pitchford sent council members a breakdown of past election voter turnout and the numbers don't show an active voter pool in the city:

May 1, 2010, we had 13,162 registered voters – only 843 people voted!  Three Wards had only 1 candidate.

Ward 1 –   92

Ward 2 – 145

Ward 3 – 304

Ward 4 -  302  (3 write-in candidates – no candidate on the ballot)

May 6, 2008, we had 11,501 registered voters –Mayor & At-large (2 seats)

Mayor –    3,019 people voted   (2 candidates)

At-large – 4,867 people voted  (3 candidates)

May 2, 2006, we had 10,766 registered voters – 2,275 people voted

Ward 1 –   492 (3 candidates)

Ward 2 –   673 (2 candidates)

Ward 3 –   783 (2 candidates)

Ward 4 -   327 (1 candidate)

May 4, 2004, we had 11,037 registered voters – Mayor & At-large (2 seats)

Mayor –    3,361 (2 candidates)

At-large – 6,358 (4 candidates)