THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 8, 1996 TAG: 9605080386
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
It was a day more March than May, with the sort of cold, bone-clanking rain that keeps people indoors unless they absolutely have to go out. It was the kind of day that always dampens voter turnout.
It was not hard to imagine that this time, for once, Virginia Beach election officials might be breathing a silent prayer.
With a wild, confused ballot that had the look of an emerging nation testing the waters of democracy for the first time, a heavy turnout might have swamped the system.
Diligent voters told tales Tuesday of spending hours studying voter guides. Many arrived with cheat-sheets, like school kids who'd studied too little for a Latin final. Others, who arrived uninformed, spent as long as an hour hunkered over page after page of ballots.
More than 50 names. Crossover voting among borough and at-large candidates for both the School Board and the City Council. Races in which two ballot pages were needed to list all the candidates. And a muddily worded referendum aimed at making it all simpler the next time. Maybe.
``I was about to give this one up because there were so many candidates,'' said Llewellyn Jalbert Sr., a retired Navy man who voted at Thalia Elementary School. ``It was just too much. I'm afraid some candidates missed out on votes because people just gave up.''
Cathy Pepe said she nearly gave up, and she has never missed a vote. ``It was confusing,'' said Pepe, a part-time librarian. ``I just didn't know who all these people were. I didn't know anything about them.'' She spent several hours in the morning studying up on the candidates. At lunchtime, she voted at Thalia Elementary.
She was intrigued by the referendum question on changing the way the city elects its leaders. It dismayed her, she said, to have to vote ``no'' in order to say ``yes'' to changing the voting system.
``I didn't like the way they wrote the question,'' she said.
In a city that only recently began electing school board members, the length of the ballot was daunting. Some took the time to bone up. Others didn't.
When Deborah Stephenson voted at Windsor Oaks Elementary, she choose only the candidates she was sure of. The others, she ignored. ``Some things I just skipped,'' said Stephenson, who admitted that she found the issues confusing. ``The referendum? I didn't even vote for that.''
``I didn't have any trouble with it,'' said Luanne Slupek of the ballot. She spent the early morning handing out campaign fliers at Arrowhead Elementary. ``But I understand some people were taking as long as an hour in the booth.''
Insurance salesman Archie Johnson, voting at Thalia Elementary, said he tried to stay up with the candidates but it was overwhelming. ``I tried to read as much as I could,'' he said, ``but I've got to work.
``We don't know anything about them. It was like voting in the dark, really. There were just too many people.''
``There are just so many candidates that it's very difficult to make a decision,'' said Jane West, standing under a black umbrella at the Kmart at the Kemps River shopping center. ``It seems like everyone in Virginia Beach was running.''
If the ballot wasn't tricky enough, the gauzy understanding some folks have of Virginia's odd electoral process only added to the difficulties. Terry Laubscher, who talked politics Tuesday as he fed dollars into the lottery machine at Pembroke Mall, said he hadn't followed the city races but might stop by the polls later in the day to support Sen. John W. Warner.
``If I vote at all, I'll vote for him,'' Laubscher said. ``He seems like a good conservative.'' Warner, seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate, will be on a Republican primary ballot in June. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by CANDICE CUSIC, The Virginian-Pilot
Nancy Dahlman Guy, center, newly chosen to the School Board,
celebrates with, from left, Loryn Utterback-Duncan; Guy's daughter,
Maggie, 8; and school board member Karen O'Brian.
Photo by BILL TIERNAN, The Virginian-Pilot
An assortment of campaign signs greeted Virginia Beach voters
Tuesday as they approached Arrowhead Elementary School to cast their
ballots in the municipal elections.
KEYWORDS: ELECTION RESULTS VIRGINIA BEACH by CNB