The next installment in Virginia Beach’s voting system saga is taking place at the polls this election season.
Voters in Virginia Beach will see a referendum on their ballots about their citywide voting system, which has been the subject of lawsuits and General Assembly proposals for almost a decade.
It’s asking them to pick their preference between the 10-1 system, which is what Beach voters have used in city council and school board elections since 2022, or a new 7-3-1 system that borrows some elements of the former system that a federal judge ruled violated the federal Voting Rights Act.
The exact wording is: Should the method of city council elections set forth in the Virginia Beach City Charter be changed from a modified 7-3-1 system to a 10-1 system?
According to the city’s information page on the referendum, if voters choose the 10-1 system, the city will again ask the General Assembly to approve legislation that codifies it into the city charter. If voters prefer the 7-3-1 system, it “would indicate a desire to use the modified 7-3-1 system in future elections.”
What makes the systems different?
While the 7-3-1 system is in Virginia Beach’s charter, it’s never been used.
It calls for seven representatives elected only by voters in their districts, three elected by everyone in the city and the mayor also elected citywide. School Board elections, which mirror council elections, would similarly have seven district representatives and four members selected citywide.
The 10-1 system has every district representative elected solely by voters in their district and only the mayor elected by everyone in the city. On the School Board, one member is also elected by all city voters.
That system was designed by a court-appointed expert after the first legal challenge to Virginia Beach’s old at-large voting system. A federal judge ruled in 2021 that system, in which all representatives – including those representing specific residency districts – were picked by everyone in the city, diluted minority voting power.
The 2022 local elections were held under the 10-1 voting system. Three out of the six seats on the ballot were won by non-incumbents, and three of the new council members were also Black. The Campaign Legal Center, which assisted with the original lawsuit against the city, called it “the most diverse city council in Virginia Beach’s history.”
Although the 10-1 system was adopted by City Council and used in local elections, it hasn’t been codified in the City Charter.
In 2021, as the federal courts passed its order down to Virginia Beach, the state changed the law to say cities with district-based residency requirements for members of a local governing board must require that those people are elected only by voters in their district.
Virginia Beach claimed that meant the federal court order didn’t matter, and they took that argument to an appeals court. The original 2021 order was vacated in July 2022, but it was too late in the year to change the voting system before local elections in the fall. The city used the 10-1 system.
In 2023, the city worked with the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center’s to get public feedback on voting system preferences before regular redistricting. The research found most of the respondents preferred the 10-1 system, so the city prepared to ask the General Assembly for the required charter change to codify the 10-1 system.
Legislation that would have put the 10-1 system in Virginia Beach’s charter made it through the state legislature, but Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed it.
Virginia Beach says this year’s ballot referendum is to “address the conflict between the Charter and the City’s redistricting ordinance.”
Who’s against it?
A referendum committee largely funded by city business interests, Every Vote Counts VB, supports adopting a 7-3-1 voting system.
The group includes former city council member Linwood Branch, who was the lead plaintiff in a state lawsuit challenging the city’s 10-1 system.
Supporters of a 7-3-1 system said it would allow city voters the chance to select more members of the City Council and School Board – five of 11 members of either body rather than only two of 11 under the 10-1 system.
The Every Vote Counts group planted signs around the city claiming the 10-1 system would “cheat” voters out of representation or that it would lead to “taxation without representation.” But voters still get direct district representation under the 10-1 system.
Plus, Beach voters have never had the representation under the 7-3-1 system: Even though the system is in the city charter, it’s never been used in an election.
A coalition of local organizations, including two referendum committees, supports codifying the 10-1 system in the charter.
Georgia Allen, a longtime civil rights leader in Virginia Beach, is among those who support continued use of the 10-1. Allen is among the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit that led to the creation of the system.
