| MANASSAS CITY – Member City Council | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Votes | Percent | Graph |
| Marc T. Aveni Republican |
4,185 | 24.22% |  |
| Sheryl L. Bass Republican |
5,243 | 30.34% | |
| Ken D. Elston Democrat |
4,028 | 23.31% | |
| Patricia E. Richie-Folks Democrat |
3,704 | 21.43% | |
| Write-in | 122 | 0.71% | |
Yesterday’s election for local office was a first for the City. Heretofore, the council and school board elections were held in the spring in a special election. Last year, the citizens voted to have this election during the regular time in November. Did this change affect the results?
Obviously more people voted because this was a general election rather than a special election within the City. The overall results were that just under 4 times as many people voted for council members in this general election than in May 2012.
Just to recap the council results of May, 2012:
*Wolfe – 1363
*Way- 1327
*Lovejoy- 1243
Write -in – 1052 (Bass received 997 of these votes)Carman – 842
Richie-Folks -787
* winners currently in office
It might be significant to mention that this election yesterday was a mid-term election rather than a presidential election. Might that affect the results even more? I will let people like Steve Thomas , Ivan, and Steve Hirsh made that determination. I would like to know their opinions. Additionally, two retiree spots were open. Andy Harrover (R) and Steve Randolph (I) both decided not to run. Only Marc Aveni was the incumbent seeking re-election.
The demographics of the City don’t seem close to matching the demographics of its elected officials. Perhaps women need to actively recruit more women to represent them. (It’s great to see Sheryl Bass back on the Council!) There are still no minorities represented. One has to ask why. Are minorities not registered to vote? Are some not eligible to vote? Did some folks just not think their vote was important? If you don’t vote you have no room to grouse and complain.
What do city residents have to say?
As an aside, congratulations to the 2014 winners and to Andy and Steve Randolph, thanks for your years of service to the community. You will be missed.
The turnout yesterday wasas large or larger than that of the governors race last year. Manassas elected a Dem. to the City Council for the first time in 39 years.
Moon, why do you call the elections formerly held in May, “special elections”. They were general elections, specified in the city charter, held on a recurring first tuesday in May. Special elections are called for a specific purpose, outside of a normal cycle, non – recurring, and do not supplant a general election.
Ivan, In light of the GOP performance one could argue that a sweep may have occurred, had the party run a full slate. I won’t, as its purely hypothetical. Also, with the retirement of Mr. Randolph, who is of a moderate political temperament, replaced by Mr. Elston, and Sheryl Bass replacing Andy Harrover, I would argue that the balance of power within the city remains unchanged.
Because I didn’t know what else to call them. That’s pretty much it. In the future I will call them May City Elections.
Steve,
Agreed, the balance on the council does seem unchanged, just a few different characters.
Thanks Moon. I appreciate it! Steve is right, the calculus on Council is unchanged.
The calculus might be unchanged but everyone will miss you and Steve as people on the council. Math is math. People are always going to be people. Thank you both for your service to the community. Losing you guys and Cindy Brookshire is just too much.
Here are some more graphs focusing on the City Council election.
http://rickbookwalter.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/some-observations-on-the-manassas-city-elections/
@Rick,
Very interesting and very informative. I expect the 2016 election will be even more different than this one since more people come out to vote in presidential elections.
Thanks very much for posting it here. I also enjoyed reading the comments.
I tend to generally think of local folks as less partisan, whether they are county or city.
ADDENDUM:
I mean the local politicians tend to be less tied to party platform in their day to day operations. I find this refreshing. Not all but most….
Thanks for the good review, MH. I too think the next election will see a lot more changes in the City. Took a walk through Old Town Manassas this evening. A bit damp and chilly, but even so a wonderful place to be. Peaceful. Safe. Well kept. A real credit to our current leadership. I have every confidence that the newly elected Councilmen intend to keep it that way. There are a lot of differences between Marc, Sheryl, and Ken on how to work it out, but I no doubt they have the very best intentions of representing all the good folks in this town. No doubt.
Rick, it is a wonderful place. The neat thing about the city is that you always run into someone you know. It never fails. It just gives me a feeling of well-being. When I first came to the area, many more years ago than I care to publically admit, I lived in the City. I always will consider it home. My son lives in Old Town. He and his family love it.
It’s a good thing that we have Manassas Citizens like Rick, as well as local blogs to provide election news and analysis, because InsideNOVA is horrible. Check out both the print and online reporting of the Manassas results, and you will see what a piss-poor job the paper did. First, they incorrectly identify the long-serving Independent Gentleman from Quarry Station, Mr. Randolph as a Republican. So, this foundational flaw in factual reporting permeates and shapes the remainder of the story. According to INSIDENOVA, Manassas was 100% Republican. Since two Republicans are retiring (Harrover and Randolph) and only a single incumbent Republican seeking re-election (Aveni), along with the Republican challenger (Bass) were successful, there was a GOP net-loss of one seat. Since this seat was won by a Democrat (Elston), their print headline for this article is “Manassas Votes for Change”. The story makes perfect sense, to the marginally informed or engaged. The problem is, the articles premise, and conclusion are both WRONG.
First off, we informed Manassas residents all know the respected, long-serving Gentleman from Quarry Station is a proud Independent, and the current make-up of the council is 5 Republicans and 1 Independent. Mr. Randolph declined to run again. The GOP nominated two Republicans (Aveni & Bass) to run for the two seats currently held by Republicans (Aveni, Harrover) that were up this cycle. The Democrats nominated two candidates (Elston & Ritchie-Folks) for the single remaining seat, and hopefully to take one of the seats currently held by a Republican. The TWO GOP nominees were successful in holding the current GOP seats. 100% GOP electoral success here. The Democrats were successful in picking up the remaining, UNCONTESTED, open seat…Elston (D), defeated Ritchie-Folks (D), for this seat. The Democrats has a 50% electoral success at the local level. Come January, the council will still be 5 Republicans (plus a Republican Mayor). The only change will be a Democrat will have replaced an Independent. This doesn’t represent a “vote for change”, since there were no Republican seats lost, no Republican nominee was defeated, and no Independent ran for the seat and lost. No incumbent was defeated. The only local candidate who was defeated was Ritchie-Folks.
Sure, voter turnout was higher. This shouldn’t be a surprise…since there was a huge Federal Election. Warner (the incumbent) won…by a couple of points. Comstock (R) beat Foust (D) by a decent margin in the City…which had traditionally gone for Wolf (R). In the first November local election since the City’s founding, Manassas voted to keep the City Council at 5 R’s. Is it because they elected a woman? Well, they also said “No” to another woman, choosing the male democrat over the female democrat. Real change of a gender-based nature would have been sending two women to council. Real partisan-change would have been sending two democrats to council. So, I ask INSIDENOVA, what “change” did Manassas vote for?
Steve, thanks for going in to detail for folks. I tried to do it on the fly but I wasn’t nearly as thorough as you.
The way to change outcomes is for more people to get out and vote.