Virginia Beach’s 10-1 Election System Faces New Challenge

By Leonard E. Colvin
Chief Reporter Emeritus
New Journal and Guide 

Last November, African-American civic and faith leaders in Virginia Beach said they had suspicions of efforts to sabotage the implementation of the city’s new 10-1 system of electing its Council and school board members.

Since then, they have determined that their fears and suspicions were well-founded.

Then Rev. Gary McCollum, chairman of the advocacy group “Due the Right Things” who supports the new system, sounded the alarm in an editorial that appeared in the local papers, including the GUIDE.

He said former Virginia Beach City Treasurer John Atkins was leading the effort.

In a late August edition of the “Princess Anne Independent News,” Atkins noted in a paid advertisement that the Council approved the new system without the voters’ consent via a referendum.

McCollum said in 2021, a U.S. Federal Court in Norfolk ruled that the old hybrid system of electing Council violated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965.

The court agreed with a suit, “Hathaway vs. the City of Virginia Beach,” that the hybrid at-large-district system Atkins and his followers wanted to preserve violated the VRA.

The city was forced to craft and adopt the current 10-1 system, where ten single-member districts would be used to elect council members, and the mayor was elected at-large.

Also, State Delegate Kelly Convirs-Fowler sponsored a bill declaring such hybrid systems.

The city used the new system to elect many of the current members of the Council in 2022. Four of them are African-Americans, the most significant number in the city’s history.

Hired by the city, the UVA’s Weldon Cooper Center determined the election system complies with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The center also conducted a survey indicating the 10-1 district voting system was supported by 81 percent of city residents, with a 95 percent confidence level.

The last piece of the puzzle to codify the new system was changing the city’s Charter to update it to reflect the change during the 2024 session of the Virginia General Assembly.

The lawmakers did with passage of Senate Bill 189; sponsored by newly minted State Senator Aaron Rouse. Delegate Fowler-Convirs, who also represents the Beach sponsored a similar Bill passed in the House: HB 416.

But in early January, former council members Linwood Branch, Dee Oliver, Don Horsely, Steve Simpson, and LaTonya Roberson filed a lawsuit against the new system.

The lawsuit claims the imposition of the new system “unlawfully diluted their voting rights guaranteed under the Constitution of Virginia.”

Recently, toward the end of the current legislative session, Governor Glenn Youngkin, instead of approving or vetoing the Senate Bill, amended it.

Youngkin said the Charter change should wait until the pending lawsuit regarding the 10-1 system plays out in court.

Youngkin also included a reenactment clause to allow for a reassessment of the legislation pending a potential resolution of the ongoing lawsuit involving Virginia Beach.

Senator Rouse, Delegates  Convirs-Fowler and Alex Askew immediately  criticized his action as an unnecessary delay tactic.

Rev. McCollum, who is also the Virginia Beach NAACP vice president, said, ”It’s a delaying tactic to cater to moneyed interests in Virginia Beach to take us back to an old system that has never worked.”

He called on the legislature to continue to move forward and give Virginia Beach citizens the right to choose their own representatives at the Council and school board levels.

The amendment to the bill can be reversed by a two-thirds vote from both the Senate and House. Senator Aaron Rouse is expected to bring it to the General Assembly when they reconvene for a veto session on April 17.

“I am still optimistic that the state is going to do the right thing because we can’t go backwards, and we won’t go backwards,” McCollum said. “The citizens of Virginia Beach have spoken, and they’re going to speak again in November. They’re going to speak again in other elections. We’re not going to go backward. Any attempt by the Governor to delay this it’s not going to work.”