By 11:00 p.m. Tuesday, tentative results were in from the Knox County Election Commission, with large wins for the GOP across the board. A uniquely non-partisan issue on the ballot, however, was Knoxville City Charter Amendment 2, which sought to transition all six of the district city council representatives to be effectively at-large.
All throughout Knoxville, signs could be seen reading “Vote against At-large” or “Yes on 2, restore your vote.” Ultimately, the “No’s” won out, and the amendment failed by just over 1,300 votes – a 2% margin.
But what does that mean for the city council elections going forward? Well, instead of voters city-wide voting on all nine district representatives in the general elections (six district, three at-large), the six district council members will now be limited to run and receive votes in their geographic districts only, in both the primary and general elections.
There have been several pros and cons floated for such a system. Bill Lyons, a retired professor of political science and the current associate director of the Institute for American Civics at the University of Tennessee, says district-only races could enhance local area representation.
“When you run in a district only, you basically represent that district, and you’re not accountable to other voters,” Lyons said. “Your attention is going to be much more on the smaller district rather than the city.”
Andrew Roberto is the city council representative for District 2, in West Knoxville. He strongly supported Amendment 2, and said that an all at-large system would allow for more accountability across city council.
“When I'm a private citizen, I know that there are going to be issues that come up in the city and in my specific neighborhood,” Roberto said. “I want to make sure that when that happens – that all of the people who are going to vote on something that's going to impact my family and myself – that I have accountability for all of those council members.”
Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon was also in favor of the amendment. She told WUOT News after results were in that she thinks the new district-only system will still work well.
“I’m really glad that the voters of the city of Knoxville get to decide how we vote,” Kincannon said. “That’s what I think is most important, is that we don’t want other entities to tell us how best to vote … Now we’ll have a little bit of a different system, and I’m confident that we will make that work as well.”
Knoxville’s next primary city election will be held in August of next year. Districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 will all be up for grabs. Voters can find out which district they live in here.
WUOT News Reporter Jacqui Sieber contributed to this story. A previous version of this story erroneously stated that the next city primary election will be held "early next year." This statement was inaccurate, as the primary will actually be held in late August.
