Census delay leaves Charlotte elections date — and transit tax — in limbo 

The Charlotte City Council could skip elections this November and hold back-to-back municipal races in 2022 and 2023, a dilemma caused by delayed census reporting.

Under normal circumstances, the U.S. Census Bureau would have disclosed redistricting data in March, giving local officials ample time to redraw maps based on the latest population statistics. That process is typically completed by July— and ultimately paves the way for municipal primaries in September , followed by a November general election. The last redistricting was in 2010.

”The district lines have to shift every 10 years because the districts have to have equal population,” said Eric Heberlig, a UNC Charlotte political scientist. For example, he said: “If more people had moved to south Charlotte, then you’d have to shrink the district in south Charlotte — and in districts where fewer people have moved, they have to expand.”

Yet because of pandemic-induced circumstances, census data won’t be available until at least Sept. 30, the bureau announced Friday.

That makes the initial election timeline — when factoring in a redistricting process that takes several months — all but impossible to achieve, said City Council member Ed Driggs, who chairs the Budget and Effectiveness committee. The problem is occurring in about 40 North Carolina municipalities — including Raleigh, Greensboro and Fayetteville — though the General Assembly hasn’t intervened yet.

The Charlotte City Council on Monday will discuss and potentially vote on two main remedies:

• Defer the election by one year: In the interim, the city would analyze new census data and redraw district maps for an election in 2022.

• Proceed with elections this year, using the old council district maps and outdated population data — but risk legal challenges.

”You have to understand we’re dealing with the least of evils here,” Driggs said during Tuesday’s committee meeting.

“We don’t have a perfect solution here ... We have to move ahead as if the responsibility will remain with us, even knowing that there is likely to be an action by the General Assembly.”

Timing of local elections

City attorney Patrick Baker favors the first option for Charlotte. Waiting for updated Census data to rebalance districts supports the concept of “one man, one vote.”

Baker acknowledged that even in the 2019 election, Charlotte’s population breakdown by district was distorted. But at that juncture, the city wasn’t awaiting census data or worrying about the prospects of lawsuits.

“I think it would be a real problem legally to move forward with the 2021 election as is, based on the information that’s been presented about our current districts,” Baker told the committee.

In the first scenario, Charlotte voters would elect City Council members for one-year terms in 2022, and then there would be another election in 2023, Baker said.

The at-large City Council races — as well as the mayoral election — would likely operate in lockstep with this plan, despite not being tied to census redistricting data, Driggs said. (A city spokesman did not respond to Observer questions about how the delayed census information impacts the mayoral race.)

These are roughly the proposed key dates, according to deputy city attorney Lina James:

• Dec. 6-17, 2021: Candidate filing period

• March 8, 2022: Primary day

• April 26, 2022: Primary run-off day

• Nov. 8, 2022: General election

For now, Heberlig said, potential candidates are in a holding pattern for campaigning and fundraising, as they wait to see how redrawn districts could upend their anticipated primary opponents — and the voters they’ll need to woo at the polls.

Council member Braxton Winston said his colleagues must clarify quickly whether or not the 2021 election will be deferred “for democracy’s sake and for the people’s sake.”

”It seems like this is a pretty binary choice. There’s not a lot of kind of nuance to it,” Winston said during Tuesday’s committee meeting. “The legal predicament that we’re in is the No. 1 piece of evidence to make a decision.”

Charlotte transit tax delay?

If the City Council postpones the election, Charlotte may also need to rethink its controversial sales tax referendum initially targeted for this November.

Baker said the Council cannot pursue a standalone ballot referendum for “1 cent for mobility tax” — a focal point of the city’s ambitious transportation plan to expand light rail throughout Mecklenburg County, plus connectivity through greenways and bikeways.

Leaders in north Mecklenburg are skeptical that a long-promised Red Line, stretching from uptown Charlotte to the Lake Norman area, will come to fruition.

“We might actually benefit from having a more settled situation this year than it looks right now,” Driggs told the Observer Wednesday. “In my mind, we still have some work to do in order to persuade the public that we are kind of unified and everyone is on board.”

Heberlig cautioned that consecutive election cycles might hamper city government. If members are elected for just one year, they automatically find themselves in campaign mode when sworn into office.

“Just having one more thing on their plate — and this is something they would have to decide — just crowds out time and mental energy to deal with all the other big issues,” Heberlig said. “Discretionary issues are going to get deprioritized.”

This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 2:40 PM.