Author Archive for Waldo Jaquith

Democrats nominated incumbent Satyendra Huja and newcomers Kathleen Galvin and Dede Smith for City Council yesterday, Charlottesville Tomorrow reports, and ousted three-term clerk of court incumbent Paul Garrett in favor of challenger Llezelle Dugger. A record 2,524 Democrats voted in the all-day firehouse primary. Huja and Galvin were both clear preferences of a majority of voters—winning on the first ballot—but it took five rounds of counting via instant-runoff voting before Smith finally emerged as the third-most-popular candidate, narrowly beating Paul Beyer by 31 votes.

The three Democrats nominated for Council will now run against the five independent candidates (Republicans have yet again failed to put forth challengers) for the November election. Nobody else is running for clerk, making Dugger the presumptive winner.

6:30 PM Update: The unofficial tallies have been released. These are the numbers for council, and these are the numbers for clerk. What stands out here is that Dugger trounced Garrett and fellow challenger Pam Melampy, with 1,534 votes to Garrett’s 656 and Melampy’s 294. The numbers from the council race show that all three nominees were also the top three vote-getters in the first round of voting, indicating that the results may not have been different with a traditional balloting system.

It’s that time again. This Saturday, Charlottesville Democrats will hold their primary at Burley Middle School from 9am–7pm, where people will be voting for the Democratic nominees for City Council and Clerk of Court. Any Democrat can show up at any point in the day and cast their ballot. (Note that Democrats use an instant runoff voting system now, which is a really great voting system that ensures that the most popular candidates win, rather than just the candidates that crack some incredibly low percentage required in a race with a lot of candidates. To see what the somewhat unusual ballot will look like, visit the Charlottesville Democrats’ website.)

This is your chance to convince people to support your candidates of choice. For Clerk of Court, the candidates are Llezelle Dugger, Paul Garrett, and Pam Melampy. And for City Council, the candidates are Paul Beyer, Colette Blount, Brevy Cannon, Kathleen Galvin, James Halfaday, Satyendra Huja, and Dede Smith. A lot of people haven’t made their mind up for clerk, and there are plenty of people who know one or two people who they want to support for council, and are looking to round up their list. Make a pitch for the candidates you’re passionate about. (For them, not against the other candidates. You do your candidate no favors attacking the opposition at this point.) Don’t support any of the Democrats? Then this as a chance to persuade people to sit out the primary and support one of the independent candidates.