ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 3, 1996 TAG: 9610030083
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: N-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
ELIZABETH Leah recently retired after 26 years as Roanoke County's voter registrar, but she's still recruiting voters every time she gets behind the wheel.
Leah obtained one of her most prized possessions as soon as Virginia began offering personalized license plates in 1981. Although she's been offered money for it, she has no plans to part with her tag, which reads "VOTE."
Since her car also is equipped with a citizens band radio, the tag has served as a conversation piece, particularly when she's driving out of state and is spotted by Virginia truckers feeling lonesome for home. Her farthest-away encounter was with a truck driver from Bristol who spotted her tag as she was driving through Nevada.
The tag has proved to be a perfect form of expression for the quiet, unassuming woman who still manages to make friends almost instantly.
"Elizabeth is the kind of person that you like to be around," said Roanoke County Supervisor Fuzzy Minnix, who knows Leah not only through her work as registrar but also as a member of the same church. "She would never call attention to herself, but she does a tremendous amount of things in the background, both for the county and the church."
Leah retired this year after becoming seriously ill with cancer. The new registrar is Diane St. John.
If there was one part of her job Leah hated, it was telling people on
Election Day they weren't registered and could not vote. Fortunately, that didn't happen too often. Over her 26 years in office, the number of registered voters doubled from 23,000 to 46,000. The highest turnout for an election was in 1992 when 91 percent of all registered voters in the county came to the polls to choose a president. Roanoke County was one of only five localities in the state to hit the 90 percent mark.
"That was a busy year, but by then I was beginning to get used to it," Leah said.
She began her job as registrar on Dec. 1, 1969. Earlier that year, her secretarial job at Moore's Super Stores ended when the department head she worked for was transferred. Her aunt, an election official, encouraged Leah to apply for the registrar's job when it came open.
At the time, a consolidation vote was pending, so Leah's interview was put on hold as the Electoral Board waited to see whether they would even need a new registrar. The referendum failed.
The question Leah remembers most clearly from that interview was the one the board members didn't ask: her political affiliation.
"I was really pleased," she said, "and to this day they never asked what party I belonged to or, I guess, what party I'd belong to if I did."
Her nonpartisan handling of the office earned her widespread respect, according to County Administrator Elmer Hodge.
"She had the full confidence of both political parties and elected officials too," he said. "She really is a good person."
In the early days, Leah said, she stayed so busy on Election Day that she wouldn't even eat; she'd just grab a can of soda. Still, she was surprised when Electoral Board members later commented on how calm she had grown with experience.
"I didn't realize that I was that nervous or that it showed," she said. "The thing that got me through it was prayer. I always had a special prayer when I went to bed the night before that I had done everything properly."
During Leah's career, the registrar's office moved from the basement of the old courthouse, now part of Roanoke College, to a converted house on Valley Forge Avenue, to the current location in the County Administration Center on Bernard Drive.
Other changes in the office include computers, which have eliminated the necessity to truck tens of thousands of punch cards to the county's data processing department in order to print out precinct lists for each election.
Still, an increase in both registration and regulation has caused the registrar's staff to grow from two part-time helpers to two full-time assistants. Leah said she expects the new motor-voter law to create the need for an even larger staff.
Leah said she also has noticed some changes in voters' attitudes.
"They're a little more cynical sometimes, I think," she said. "You sometimes hear `My husband told me to come here' or `My wife made me come vote today' and `What's my one vote going to do?'''
Anyone who asks that question within hearing distance of Leah is likely to hear the story of Edward F. Jennings Jr.
In 1977, Jennings scribbled the name of Lawrence Terry as a write-in candidate in an election for the county supervisor in the Windsor Hills District even though Terry was actually on the ballot as the Democratic contender. On election night, the voting tallies indicated a tie, but two days later Jennings' vote was discovered as Electoral Board members reviewed the write-in results.
Because of the unusual circumstances, the case had to be heard by a three-judge panel, but, in the end, Jennings' vote was counted and Terry won the election.
That one vote, more than the tens of thousands she's overseen every Election Day for the past 26 years, is all the motivation Leah needs to get in her car and spread her one-word message.
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Elizabeth Leah retired this year asby CNBRoanoke County registrar, but she's taking her message on the road.
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