"I am writing on behalf of the Electoral Board in support of the proposed re-scheduling of City Council elections from the month of May to the November election date. By resolution at our August 2001 meeting, the Board voted unanimously to deliver its recommendation for this change. I am writing this letter to provide the reasons why we support this change:

Decreasing the Number of Elections Conserves our City's Time and Resources. It is my understanding that the Commonwealth of Virginia is the only state in the nation which conducts elections every year. Most states time their local and state-wide legislative and gubernatorial elections to coincide with the federal elections held in even-numbered years. In the City of Charlottesville, not only do we have November general elections each year, but every other year we have elections in May, which means twice a year. With the trend of political parties in Virginia towards conducting primaries to nominate their candidates, in some years of these off-numbered years we may have three (3) elections per year. In any four-year cycle, the City of Charlottesville can be called upon to conduct as many as ten (10) elections.

For each election, the Voter Registrar's office is called upon to gear up its voter registration efforts and its voter awareness drive. For each election, Electoral Board, in conjunction with the office of Sheri Iachetta, Voter Registrar, is required to: recruit and appoint election officials from the citizens of the City; conduct mandatory training of election officials; order ballots and ask the voting technicians to program and prepare the voting equipment; test and secure the voting equipment prior to delivery to the polling locations; conduct the election on election day; and finally canvass the results of the election the day after voting day and deliver the certification to local and state officials.

These efforts are required each election, no matter how many voters turn out on election day. In the most recent City Council election, only twenty-eight [percent] (28%) of the registered voters voted. Participation in City Council elections has been steadily decreasing in the past two decades . . . . This election, which is representative of recent Council races, cost the City nearly $3.00 per vote to conduct.

From the view of the Electoral Board, it is highly desirable to decrease the time and resources we use in conducting multiple elections during a given year.

Decreasing the Number of Elections Helps in Retaining Election Officials. The Election Officials who serve in our polling places on election day work from 5:15 a.m. often until 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. (The City of Charlottesville is one of a only a few localities in Virginia to offer our officials a half-day schedule, which is preferred by some of older election officials or by parents with younger children, but this simply means that the Electoral Board must recruit twice as many election officials.) In addition, Election Officials are required to attend a training session prior to election and, if they are the Chief, Assistant Chief or a Closing Specialist in any polling place, they typically attend a second training session per election.

The Voter Registrar's office and Electoral Board are jointly responsible for recruiting and retaining election officials. With the City's move to paying all employees, even these occasional employees, a living wage, we hope that our task will be less daunting. But staffing the polling places is probably the single most difficult duty we face each election. Over the past eight years, we have only retained twenty percent (20%) of our election officials. Putting another race on November's ballot would decrease the now year-round recruitment of election officials and would ensure our polling places are well staffed during our annual election.

Conducting City Council Elections in November Will Save the City Money. It is our opinion that moving the City Council elections to November will result in an immediate savings in the current fiscal year of $29,368.00. The Voter Registrar's office has compiled a Cost Breakdown of General and City Council elections going back to 1996.

The major expense and the single most compelling reason for moving our elections to November is the payroll cost for our election officials under the living wage basis. The Registrar's/Electoral Board budget was in the red during the recently-completed fiscal year because we did not budget for and no one anticipated that our election officials, who are occasional employees of the City, would be subject to living wage considerations. (Previously, we had paid our election officials an average of $100 a day, or approximately $6.25 an hour, which was a state-wide average.) Since the implementation of living wage, which the Electoral Board fully supports, the cost of payroll for our election officials is projected to increase by approximately $10,000 per election. In addition, in an effort to increase voter participation among young voters [and to] recruit future election officials, the Electoral Board has implemented an Election Page program. This program, allowed in Virginia for the first time a year ago, allows high school students to work at our polling places assisting voters and with other duties allowed by law. This program has resulted in increased payroll costs for the City but hopefully [will provide] long-range benefits.

. . . the Projected Cost Breakdown for the May 2002 includes expenses associated with testing new voting equipment. New voting machine technology is a priority for the Registrar and the Electoral Board, but additional Voting Technician hours, advertising costs, and registrar's office time will be required to introduce any machines to be tested in the next year or so . . . . this Projected Cost Breakdown includes a new line item: Printing of Election Day materials ($1,500). The State Board of Elections has mandated that all election day materials and data be produced and printed at the expense of localities effective this November election.

City Council may be interested to know that the City of Richmond has already changed their City ordinance to allow for Council elections in November and the City of Virginia Beach is in the process of making this change.

I would like to add that, while one may argue that the scheduling of City Council elections in May provides an opportunity for voters to focus solely on those races, the local constitutional officers, namely Clerk of the Court, Treasurer, Sheriff and Treasurer, have always been elected in November, as provided by law. In recent years, some of these races have been closely contested and it is our opinion that voters were no less focused on these races than on others on the ballot. If City Council elections were moved to November, we don't believe the visibility or competitiveness of these elections would be compromised." (Cheri A. Lewis, Electoral Board Chair, September 21, 2001)