This week’s Xpress provides an update on the petition drive by Let Asheville Vote, a local group that is attempting to force a public referendum on whether Asheville’s voting system will be partisan or nonpartisan.
The drive comes in the wake of City Council’s recent 4-3 vote to switch to partisan voting, a move critics say squeezes out unaffiliated voters and small-party candidates. Supporters of the switch say that the move makes local voting more transparent, and that local elections are often de facto partisan affairs.
July 16 is the deadline for LAV to collect 5,000 signatures from registered Asheville voters. Organizer Charlie Hume (shown here at a June 25 LAV rally in City/County Plaza) says he estimates the group has “several thousand” in hand, but he’s not sure exactly how many, since many copies of the petition are still wending their way around the city.
(Visit www.letashevillevote.org for more information about the petition, or contact Hume via e-mail [prusic@yahoo.com].)
4,999 signatures (or less) won’t do — unless the number the group collects somehow persuades City Council to revisit the issue. So, can LAV pull it off?
— Jon Elliston, news editor
