While staffing a booth on campus for the Young Democratic Socialists of America at Virginia Tech, senior Jack Nuckols kept hearing the same line from student voters about the local Blacksburg mayor race: “I just bubbled the first name on mayor and the first three on council.”
Many students had gone to the polls for the heavily publicized statewide races and were not aware of the local races on their ballot. And since the Blacksburg candidates run as independents, there weren’t readily identifiable party affiliations that would give voters some clue to their platform.
And now, Virginia Tech student voters will likely decide the outcome of the Blacksburg mayor race.
The race was too close to call Tuesday night, with only 46 votes separating Peter Macedo and Michael Sutphin. That’s less than 1% of the 9,612 votes counted so far for the mayor’s race. The Montgomery County registrar’s office said Wednesday that officials still had 2,028 provisional ballots to verify and count; 98% of them were from precincts mostly populated by Virginia Tech students. That’s on top of the remaining absentee ballots yet to arrive that were mailed before the end of the day Tuesday.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Sutphin urged his supporters to be patient as the last votes are counted.
“This race truly remains undecided until every eligible vote is counted,” he said.
Macedo said when he did door-to-door canvassing and met students, most had no idea there was a local race happening.
“I’ve been trying a very long time to engage with the students,” Macedo said. “I think not enough people knew who we were.”
The one student-sponsored event with local candidates on campus was five days before Election Day and hosted by the Young Democratic Socialists of America at Virginia Tech and the Young Democrats at Virginia Tech. About 30 students attended, Nuckols said. Most of the forum was spent understanding the influence town government had over their lives on campus and if there were opportunities for students to be included in town decisions.
“Hopefully when the new council members and whoever becomes the mayor gets sworn in, there will be more dialogue with students, so there can be more buildup for local races to be something students care about,” Nuckols said.
Voters reelected Susan Anderson and Lauren Colliver to the Blacksburg Town Council. Darryl Campbell, a newcomer, was elected to the third open seat.
In Macedo’s experience, once students knew about the local races, they wanted to make informed decisions. He said he spent a lot of time at polling places Tuesday showing students how to look up their full sample ballot, including the local races, on Vote411, a voter information website.
“They did it because they felt it was important to, but they weren’t given the same kinds of opportunities proactively to learn more about the nonpartisan candidates,” he said. “And I don’t think it’s because they didn’t want to.”
With the high stakes of the provisional ballots from Virginia Tech student voters, one thing is clear to Nuckols: “It definitely shows that student votes have power.”