What would it take to change the Christiansburg Town elections to November with other elections? What would it save taxpayers?
The current gas price is one darned good reason to look at moving elections to November. In the last election, held May 6, 2008, the
Registrar's Office reported that 1,527 of the 13,288 registered voters in the Town of Christiansburg came out to cast their vote for Town Council Members.
I will not get into the discussion of why only 1,527 of those people came out to vote, but it is important to recognize that more voters come out for the November elections than in May. The odds are very good that those same 1,527 people will come out to vote in November also.
If you consider that many people travel alone to go vote because they are doing it on the way to or from work, and give an average of a conservative 2 mile round trip to the polls, citizens are investing 3054 miles in May elections and again in November for a total of 6108 miles.
The average car gets 17 miles/gallon of gas, that 6108 miles of taxpayer mileage comes out to 359 gallons of gas used to go to elections. Citizens are paying approximately $1436 for the opportunity to vote in local, county, state, and federal elections. This also means that based on the
carbon emissions calculator provided by the EPA, the carbon emissions from these 359 gallons of gas (at 19.4 pounds/gallon) results in 6964.60 pounds of pollutants going into to our environment. Our Town Council has the opportunity to reduce that by half by simply moving Local Elections to the same November date that all of the others share.
Individual savings and environmental quality are not the only issue supporting the move of the elections. There is also the cost of the elections themselves. Previously, Blacksburg has paid 2/3 of the cost of May elections (they have 2 precincts) and Christiansburg has paid 1/3 (1 precinct). It is anticipated that by the time the next election rolls around, Christiansburg's population will be such that a second precinct is required. This will mean that not only will Christiansburg have to start paying the entire cost of the election alone, but that the cost will also increase because of the second precinct. The money to pay for the May elections will come entirely from the taxpayers of the Town of Christiansburg. (Sorry, I have not finished the calculations on the actual cost of the elections.)
Moving the elections to November would mean the costs would be greatly reduced as the County already has to pay for the bulk of election cost anyway (machines, staff, programming of equipment, ballots, etc.). Sure, Blacksburg and Christiansburg may have to pay a portion, but it would definitely be far less than if the Town continues to 'go it alone'.
These are hard financial times and the Town Council needs to tighten the belt on unnecessary expenditures like having a May election all to themselves. The only reason that I can think of that anyone would be against doing this would be out of fear that more voters turning out to vote could affect who gets elected.
Duh! I think that is the way our government works. Or, as one person noted during the candidate forums it is possible that if those individuals already elected did something people did not like, they would vote them out of office.
Again: Duh! I think that is the way our government works.I personally think our Town Council is better than that. I believe the Town Council wants to do what is best for the Town and the citizens. I believe this is something they will seriously consider. I do have concerns that if they do not move in a timely manner, we will be stuck with this pattern in the next election. There is still time for a resolution to be made and changes in the Charter implemented. This is a great opportunity for the Town Council to show what they are made of, and how they can work together to expedite a process that will save money for all of us.
This change will result in direct savings for citizens and the Town while simultaneously doing something that is GOOD for the environment. Now is the time to act Town Council!!!