Manassas Park voters ignore local races

Though many people continue to bask in the glow of November's historic election—the presidential inaugu-ration still fresh in their minds—Manassas Park Vice Mayor Bryan E. Polk is a bit disappointed.

Not personally, of course. He was re-elected to the City Council on Nov. 4.

No, Polk just wishes more people would have voted in the local races that were on the ballot in the city.

Despite a record overall turnout of 73 percent, many voters skipped making choices for City Council members and Manassas Park mayor, according to figures from the city's voter registrar.

For example, only 19 of the 4,156 people who voted in the city didn't mark a choice for president.

But nearly 800 didn't vote for mayor, and 1,191 didn't vote in a special election for council.

Maybe that's understandable. Those races were uncontested, which meant it would have taken successful write-in campaigns to defeat Mayor Frank Jones, who was re-elected, and political newcomer Suhas Nad-doni.

But in the five-way race for three council seats, there were more than 4,000 undervotes. That is, the 4,156 voters could have each marked three names, for a total of 12,468 votes. But only 8,276 votes were cast.

That wasn't exactly what city leaders had in mind when they decided to move their local contests from May, the traditional month for elections in Virginia municipalities, to November.

They hoped to capitalize on voter interest in November, the month when the Old Dominion elects presidents, gover-nors and legislators to Congress and the General Assembly.

But it seems that Manassas Park offices got lost amid the fervor of the race between now-President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain.

"I honestly think we just got completely consumed," Polk said.

He said he hasn't soured on the notion of moving city elections to November, a cause he championed.

But he's sorry that voters seemed either uninformed about local offices or determined to vote a straight party ticket.

He recalled passing information about his campaign and that of two others—who all ran as independents—to a voter who seemed unaware that City Council seats were on the ballot.

"Oh, yeah," Polk recalled the man saying. "I guess I better look at that."

Though the previous City Council election, held in 2006, had a turnout of only 12.5 percent, those voters were "informed about the issues and the candidates," Polk said.

Despite the undervotes, the move to November made economic sense.

Voter Registrar Patricia Brendel said Manassas Park saved $4,500 by not holding a city-only election in May.

She said the "magnitude" of November's election, with the first-ever black presidential candi-date on the ballot, makes it hard to compare 2008 to other election years.

The real test will come in the next regular local election, scheduled for 2010, she said. So she's not giving up hope for November elections in Manassas Park.

"I still think it was a good decision on the city's part," Brendel said.

Staff writer Jonathan Hunley can be reached at 703-369-5738.