Who has a say in running Charlotte?

This story first appeared as part of WFAE's EQUALibrium newsletter, exploring race and equity in the Charlotte region. Get the latest news and analysis in your inbox first by signing up here.

Candidate filing for this year’s municipal elections has wrapped up, setting the stage for local contests that will determine who sits on the school board, the Charlotte City Council, the mayor’s chair and other town boards. A $2.5 billion bond issue for school construction will also be on the ballot, along with $1.5 billion for other county projects.

And in the end, it’s likely that fewer than 1 in 5 voters will turn out in Mecklenburg County.

There are many reasons why a large majority of voters don’t bother to cast a ballot in our odd-year races, some of which we’ll explore a little bit more. But the upshot is this: A very small number of people will make decisions about who runs our communities and how much money they have to spend, and the patterns in who votes reflect many of the same underlying inequities in Charlotte.

Let’s look at Mecklenburg’s overall voter turnout for the last three odd-year elections (Charlotte’s 2021 municipal elections were delayed until 2022 because of issues with the Census; 12% of voters cast a ballot in last summer’s races):

• 2019: 17.1%
• 2017: 21%
• 2015: 14.8%

Of course, those small voter turnouts aren’t evenly distributed across the city. Here’s a look at where votes came from in 2017, the highest-turnout year in recent memory:

Quality of Life Explorer

The pattern of who votes in local elections mirrors other well-known divisions in our community, such as race, income and education. In Census tracts covering parts of some wealthier neighborhoods, like Eastover, Myers Park and Foxcroft, nearly half of eligible voters cast a ballot. In most others, that total was somewhere in the teens. In some low-income neighborhoods just north of uptown, the total was 5.9% that year.

This pattern is consistent in all elections — but it’s much more pronounced in the odd years. Contrast 2019, when barely 1 in 6 eligible voters went to the polls, with 2020, when more than 7 in 10 did. Here’s what voter turnout looked like that year:

Quality of Life Explorer

There’s still a difference, but it’s not nearly as glaring. While many of the wealthier, and whiter, neighborhoods in Charlotte saw voter participation in the 70-80% range, most of the lower-income tracts were still above 50%, with some crossing into the high-60% range.

So, what’s going on here? Well, a few factors are likely at play. First, the distribution of votes in odd- and even-year elections reflects the same inequality we see in many areas of our community — who has access to the resources, time and information to vote? It also likely reflects factors such as higher incarceration rates among Black communities and higher rates of non-citizenship among Latino communities, which can limit who’s able to vote. Voting rights advocates are worried about the impact changes to early voting and new requirements for photo ID will have this year in North Carolina.

With odd-year elections specifically, there’s always going to be lower turnout because, to be frank, they’re just not as interesting as national elections, especially those with a presidential contest atop the ticket. So some drop-off is bound to happen. Also, many local elections aren’t that competitive. This year, there’s no well-known Republican challenging Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles. Several Charlotte City Council incumbents don’t have an opponent. And most of the city council districts aren’t really competitive, given demographic and voter registration realities — which means the “real” race often happens in the primary.

Another factor that I can't help but wonder about: We just have a lot of elections. Since 2017, in fact, we’ve had 22 of them — an election every three and a half months, on average. That’s a lot to ask people to keep track of, on top of their daily lives.