LOCAL NEWS | SEP 13, 2017

Why Does Virginia Hold Elections In Off-Off Years?

PART OF VIRGINIA ELECTIONS COVERAGE 2017

Martin Austermuhle https://twitter.com/maustermuhle

Virginia is one of only five states in the U.S. to hold its statewide elections in years that do not coincide with a presidential or congressional mid-term election, and one of only two — New Jersey being the other — to elect a new governor this year.

But why? Is Virginia purposely trying to cut against the grain, to be a contrarian commonwealth? Or did legislators pick the off-off-year election schedule — so named because no federal candidates are on the ballot — because it’s objectively better than aligning with presidential or congressional contests?

“It’s a pure accident,” explains Brent Tarter, a retired senior editor and historian at Library of Virginia, and author of “The Grandees of Government: The Origins and Persistence of Undemocratic Politics in Virginia.”

Virginians first gained the right to directly elect a governor through the 1851 constitution; they did so that year and in 1855, 1859 and 1863. The Civil War interrupted the normal course of things thereafter, and in late 1867 and early 1868 a constitutional convention gathered to write a new state constitution as part of reconstruction.

“The way royal authority was exercised in Virginia was through the office of governor,” he adds.

From 1776 to 1830, it was the General Assembly that selected the governor for a one-year term and a limit of three consecutive terms. After 1830, the term was changed to three years, but with no ability for re-election. That prohibition remained in place in the 1851 constitution, which allowed for the popular election of governor for the first time.

To date, no other state in the union similarly prohibits a governor from standing for re-election.
“That constitution was scheduled to be ratified in the summer of 1868,” Tarter says. “The constitution specified that the first governor and lieutenant governor and attorney general to be elected and serve under that constitution would be elected on the same day.”

Had that held, Virginia’s gubernatorial election would have fallen during the same year as the presidential contest. But it didn’t.

“For a variety of reasons, the ratification referendum and the associated general election got put off until the summer of 1869. At that time, voters ratified the constitution and elected a governor, and that set in train the four-year cycle for Virginia governors. And ever since then, we’ve elected the governor on the year after a presidential election,” he says.

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