One Expensive Doughnut: Three Voters to Cost Virginia County $3,000?
[Image courtesy of MC2]
Back when the blog was just starting out, I had several posts about the effect of redistricting on election administration – and this week, we get a reminder of that phenomenon with a story out of Montgomery County in southwest Virginia. WDBJ7 has more:
When registered voters want to vote, it’s the local registrar’s job to make that happen. No matter how many or how few voters there are…
[O]ne election that has only three registered voters from Montgomery County, but they live in Radford.
Randy Wertz is the Montgomery County registrar. Wertz is responsible for making sure that every registered voter in the county, actually gets the chance to vote.
But what happens when three of those registered voters live in a different city? That doesn’t make sense, but Wertz says it’s the weird world of redistricting.
“Right now it’s going to cost [Montgomery County taxpayers] a little over three-thousand dollars just for these three voters. So you’re talking a thousand dollars per vote, if they show up to vote.”
The story behind the story, as usual, involves human nature and political compromise:
In the early 80’s, Radford annexed a small portion of Montgomery County. That small sliver of land included one home. Two homes are there today, with a total of three people. Three voters. When the annex battle was on, the deal would only work if those residents weren’t forced to become part of Radford. Word is the family back then didn’t like city politics. The city and county shook hands and lawmakers made it happen.
This arrangement hadn’t been an issue, apparently, until a special election brought the odd island into focus:
Everything was working fine until a month ago, when Democratic State Senator Phillip Puckett resigned unexpectedly. Puckett represented the 38th Senatorial district, which Radford falls under.
In the “it’s too weird to make this up” world of politics, those three ”unique” registered voters of Montgomery County, that live about a thousand feet inside the city of Radford,are the only voters from Montgomery County that can vote in the special election to replace Puckett. Radford City Registrar Tracy Howard says this “very rare” setup makes no sense.
“That’s exactly right. [Montgomery County’s] poll book will consist of three voters. How crazy is that? Yeah it’s pretty crazy, it is and it’s just because of those political boundaries, those jurisdictional boundaries.’
By law, Montgomery County must provide a voting precinct, specially made ballots and as many as six election workers on the day of the special election- for a total of three people.
The small piece of land is described as a doughnut, an island in the middle of Radford.
While the story highlights the registrars’ desire to recombine the “doughnut” with Radford City in an effort to save these costs – the most direct route – another approach might be to find ways to reduce the costs associated with the odd little precinct.
In particular, while the estimate of $3,000 grabs attention (and justifies the picture of the 23k gold-dusted $2,000 doughnut above) I find it hard to believe that the county would be at risk of losing a lawsuit or facing any other sanctions if it didn’t fully staff the polling place. Moreover, I would think that creating a poll book and unique ballots for three voters could be done in a way that saves some of the costs associated with a “normal” precinct. [If you listen carefully, you can also hear Falls Church’s Dave Bjerke calling for vote centers or vote by mail!] There could also be solutions where Radford operates the precinct under an agreement with Montgomery County in conjunction with the special election.
In short, the doughnut is an odd and potentially costly vestige of a past annexation battle – and getting rid of it entirely would certainly eliminate the problem. But if it can’t be eliminated, I truly believe that there are solutions that can use creativity to avoid cost.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m craving a doughnut!