Watauga County Board of Commissioners Structure Change 2024

WATAUGA COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS STRUCTURE CHANGE

This item is a very important resolution you will find at the very end of your ballot:

“Shall the structure of the Watauga County Board of Commissioners be changed to: (a) Three electoral districts where commissioners living within a district are nominated and elected by qualified voters within that district and (b) Two at-large seats where qualified voters from the entire county nominate and elect commissioners to those two seats?”

You are given the option of voting “Yes” or “No” on this structure change.

I’m encouraging you to vote “yes.”

In October last year, Senator Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine, Chairman of the powerful NC Legislature Redistricting and Elections Committee, hatched a plan to gerrymander all the Watauga commissioner districts into a slice and dice map that would install his preferred Republican candidates for the upcoming election.

The map Hise drew is a classic and predictable example of partisan gerrymandering and splits communities and precincts to heavily favor Republicans as well as denies almost half of Watauga’s voting population the right to choose who represents them on the County Commission board for two years. The Hise map also causes confusion for Wataugans trying to find out who represents them or even who their candidate choices are.

The Hise Map:

Both of the sitting Republican Watauga commissioners stated Hise failed to contact them or ask their opinions about the new district map, but subsequently made clear they had a heads up on Braxton Eggers’ and Chad Cole’s “The Right Side of the Mountain” spotify post at about the 28.46 mark. Wherein they prophesize that the state legislature would soon force the local school board to follow the same districts in the near future (which it did) and wherein they laugh that “There’s an elephant in the room here.”

As a result of the Hise map, over 20,000 largely progressive Watauga voters don’t even get to vote for who they want to represent them on the Board of Commissioners for two more years. Instead, if the sitting Republican commissioners are successful in winning their gerrymandered seats in November, they themselves will appoint who they want to represent those 20,000 progressives for the next two years.

It gets worse. The whole Hise scheme is a bait and switch. Under the Hise bill, the two Republican commissioners can’t lose the upcoming election even if they try. Because even if they are defeated in this year’s election, the Hise scheme mandates they will then nevertheless continue to serve on the Board of Commissioners to represent the 20,000 disenfranchised voters, even though the majority of those 20,000 voters didn’t vote for them when they ran two years ago and even though they don’t even live in those new districts.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize this scheme is a clear violation of 20,000 plus Watauga voters’ equal access and representation voting rights. The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “guarantees that the government cannot deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That protection applies to voting rights and fair elections in two critical ways: equal access to the ballot and equal representation in government.

Someone should sue.

Since the NC statutes allow North Carolina’s Boards of Commissions to hold a ballot referendum to redistrict flawed district maps, the local Board of Commissioners discussed and then voted to give Watauga voters the right to vote for a district map that would instead be fair and equal to all Watauga citizens.

The Board chose a map drawn by a professional and independent mapmaker: with three conditions. The mapmaker could not consider voter party affiliations in drawing the new map. The districts had to be as equal as possible in population densities. The new districts had to be contiguous so as not to break up communities. And no voting precincts could be split, and municipalities had to be kept whole.

By voting “YES” on the “Structure Change” referendum at the end of your ballot, you will be voting for a fair and non-partisan map equal and fair to all Watauga voters.

serve the progressive districts too.”

Once he got by a majority vote i Committee, he took the bill to the full legislature and forced it down all our throats with another partisan vote. But once he got his gerrymandered way, it still wasn’t enugh. He then revised the bill to force Watauga School Board candidates to run in tose same commissoner districts too starting in 2026. This in spite of the fact that the bipartisan school board (2Dems, 2Reps, and one unaffiliated) unanously begged his not to do so arguing it woud force an excellent non-partisan school board to become nothing but partisan.

Then the sitting Board of Commissioners in a 3-2 vote, said the people, not Raleigh, should be decid=ging how they electio their local representation so they put forth thie “Struture Change” resolution you’ll find at the bottom of your ballot

In 2026, and every four years thereafter, the members elected from Districts 1 and 4 shall each serve a four-year term.
In 2028, and every four years thereafter, the members elected from Districts 2, 3, and 5 shall each serve a four-year term.
In 2024, the three candidates receiving the highest votes will be elected to four-year terms.

The bill’s passage also pushes back the effective date of any referendum that Watauga voters pass in the November General Election to 2032 instead of 2026.

The commissioners approved placing the referendum on the ballot with a 3-2 vote.

According to the election map the commissioners approved, the county would be split into three voting districts, with District One encompassing most of the western and southern end of the county, District Two encompassing the middle, and District Three encompassing the county’s eastern end.

Voters within each district would elect a commissioner to represent their district. Meanwhile, two other candidates would be elected at-large. If the referendum passes this November, the new format will go into effect on the first Monday in December following the 2032 general election.

Sen. Hise’s office has not responded to a request for comment.

Raleigh Legislators are trying to make our local decisions for us & they’ve gone too far. We believe those of us who live here, not Raleigh, should decide who we want to represent us in local government.

RALEIGH SHOULDN’T GET TO DECIDE! – Without local input, Senator Ralph Hise of Spruce Pine decided to gerrymanderer your community to install his preferred candidates for Watauga Commissioner. He led the state legislature to split Watauga County into five districts to favor his chosen representatives, leaving over 20,000 Watauga voters without a chance to vote for their choice of who represents them on the Board of Commissioners until the year 2026. And now Raleigh is gerrymandering our school board districts starting next year too!

WE’RE FIGHTING BACK! – Your County Commission has included a “Structure Change” referendum at the bottom of your November ballot this year, giving you the opportunity to vote directly for fair maps drawn by an independent, non-partisan professional mapmaker that will not split communities and precincts.