Asheville referendum drive may have fallen short

Posted on by Jon Elliston

An article in today’s Asheville Citizen-Times reports that Let Asheville Vote, a grassroots group that recently filed 6,192 signatures with a petition seeking a referendum on partisan/nonpartisan voting, appears to have failed to gather the required number of signatures from registered city voters.

The math can be confusing and is still incomplete. 5,000 is the magic number—with even one signature less, the referendum push will be stymied. And while Board of Elections officials said they weren’t done checking every name, already they had disqualified some 1,233 signatures, likely making the tally insufficient.

BOE staff “by late Friday afternoon had checked all but 193 signatures,” the article said. “Election officials had unofficially verified 4,766 signatures and disqualified 1,233, said Trena Parker, director of the Board of Elections.”

LAV organizers haven’t thrown in the towel, and are waiting for the official, final count, which will come later this month. Look for more information about potential Asheville voting scenarios in Wednesday’s Mountain Xpress.

— Jon Elliston, news editor

 

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About Jon Elliston
Former Mountain Xpress managing editor Jon Elliston is the senior editor at WNC magazine.
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4 thoughts on “Asheville referendum drive may have fallen short”

  3. Dionysis

    Having read the gloating by ‘Green Wizard’, I fail to see why anyone would (A) try to sabotage a citizen’s initiative like this and (B) be so lame-brained as to brag about it.
    While I do have an opinion about the petition, it isn’t very relevant as I do not live in Asheville. And while I consider myself a ‘green-leaning’ progressive, such childish stunts as Green Wizard engaged in should be repudiated by everyone.

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