ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 1, 1995 TAG: 9512010018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
Country folks vote.
City folks don't - unless they live in cities in Western Virginia.
The State Board of Elections has completed its official canvass of the Nov.7 elections, and the most telling numbers may not be the vote totals, but the figures on just how many voters turned out.
Statewide, 52 percent of Virginia's registered voters cast a ballot. But that figure is misleading, because it masks the big difference in turnout between rural and urban voters.
In rural areas, turnout was routinely over 60 percent, and often over 70 percent. In Bath County, 77 percent of the voters went to the polls, the highest percentage in the state.
But in the state's three population centers - Northern Virginia, Richmond and Tidewater - turnout was in the 40 percent range, if that. In three major localities - Alexandria, Chesterfield County and Virginia Beach - turnout was only in the 30 percent range.
Political analysts say they're not surprised, although they marvel nonetheless.
"Country folks take their citizenship seriously," says University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato, the state's foremost observer of election trends. "The sense of community in rural areas is strong. Their sense of belonging and participation is more entrenched, and thank God for it."
By contrast, he says, urban areas tend to have more transient populations, and newcomers aren't as interested in state offices - the ones that were on the ballot this year.
Even in rural areas, Sabato speculates that it wasn't the General Assembly races that prompted much of the turnout this year, but the local races. "You know what really drives turnout? It's sheriff and commonwealth's attorney. Those are the ones people can relate to, especially sheriff in a rural community. People have strong feelings about their sheriff."
There's also a class element involved, he says. State legislators may make more important decisions, "but the impact of those decisions is more diffuse." The decisions a sheriff makes are more noticeable and more directly affect a wider variety of people, Sabato says. "A sheriff's race will draw out blue-collar voters who may not be voting in a statewide race. I've seen that personally lots of times."
There's one exception to the contrast between high-turnout rural communities and low-turnout urban ones: The cities in Western Virginia also had high voter turnout, significantly higher than the cities in the so-called "urban corridor."
In Roanoke, Lynchburg and Radford, 59 percent of the registered voters went to the polls. In Martinsville, almost 58 percent did.
And then there's Salem, where voters had no reason to go to the polls this year. All three offices on the ballot there, for House of Delegates, for state Senate, and for clerk of court, were unopposed.
Yet 5,126 Salem voters - almost 42 percent - showed up anyway. To put that in perspective, in Virginia Beach, the battleground for one of the state's most hotly contested state Senate races, fewer than 37 percent of the registered voters turned out.
How come Salem's turnout was so high?
Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, speculates that, with all the hoopla over elections elsewhere in the Roanoke Valley, some Salem voters may not have realized that the contests there were unopposed.
But he also believes folks in Salem simply care a lot about democracy. "I think that's part of the culture in Western Virginia," he says. ``I know I've had people tell me, `I voted for you even though I didn't have to.'''
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Map by staff: Who voted - and where.by CNB