A bid to change Arlington County’s system of government has failed, but not before the county’s election staff conducted the largest petition validation effort in Arlington history.
Linda Lindberg, the county’s general registrar, said the more than 16,000 signatures gathered on the petition to shift some authority from the county manager to a board were the most her office had ever had to certify.
“This is the first time we’ve had to validate a petition of this size,” Lindberg explained. She said the only comparable petition was a successful 1993 initiative requiring elections for school board membership.
The Committee for a Better Arlington, a group operated and funded by leaders of the county’s public safety unions, started the change-of-government petition and organized the collection of signatures.
The committee needed to gather at least 14,350 signatures — or 10 percent of the county’s registered voting population — for the change-of-government proposal to appear on the ballot this November.
The petition came up about 4,000 signatures short, because many of 16,000 names gathered were invalidated by county officials. But Lindberg said the committee’s efforts were commendable.
“I think they did a fairly good job in getting quality names we could validate,” Lindberg said.
Proponents of the petition say the county’s current government system gives too much power to the county manager, who does not hold elected office. The proposed system, among other changes, would have transferred many powers from the county manager’s office to the board, whose members would represent districts rather than the whole county.
Board Chairman Jay Fisette and other Arlington officials had spoken out against the proposed change.
County election personnel initially invalidated about 22 percent of the signatures, Lindberg said. The majority of the invalidated signatures were those of residents who had not registered to vote, and thus were ineligible to sign the petition.
Lindberg’s team threw out a block of roughly 2,200 names late in the process when her office learned one of the committee’s hired petition circulators, Cheryl Simmons, was a convicted felon.
Those collecting signatures must be eligible to vote, and Simmons’ felonious record bars her from voting this November, Lindberg said.
But the petition would have failed even if Simmons’ signatures had been allowed.
“They still would have been a little short,” Lindberg said.
The petition’s final certified tally was 10,815 signatures.
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