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V

irginia

C

apitol

C

onnections

, S

ummer

2017

5

By David Bailey

Twenty-eight years ago, (1989) to write a haiku, I penned the

words that became the title for the new directory of candidates.

Elect No Strangers!

If possible, elect friends.

If not, make friends of those elected.

Every year since 1990 David Bailey Associates has published

Elect No Strangers to help interested Virginians become better

most highly regarded in the United States.

Even as Virginia is rated among the top three states in the

nation in election administration and voter registration, there are

still obstacles to overcome. It wasn’t until 2016, that Virginia

finally made all local election offices full-time, allowing all

Virginia Citizens equal access to registration and elections services.

Local administrations still don’t know how to classify the General

Registrar, and too often elections are overlooked, and underfunded

acquainted with candidates for statewide offices and the General

Assembly.

Our staff reaches out to every candidate, and most of them provide

photos and information. However, if there is no response we include

the information from the Virginia Department of Elections and or the

Virginia Public Access Project. We always receive assistance from

the Democratic and Republican Caucus staff.

The candidates are listed in the order that they will appear on the

ballot for the statewide offices and the House of Delegates. Prior to

60 days before the November election, party nominees that withdraw

may be replaced by new candidates.

Official information regarding the November election is available

from local registrars and from the Department of Elections web site,

elections.virginia.gov. An excellent source for campaign information

is the Virginia Public Access Project,

vpap.org .

As we say, the directory includes all the ‘

winners

’—all of those

who will be elected to serve. This will be correct until there’s another

successful candidate who duplicates Jackie Stump’s 1989 winning

write-in campaign for the House of Delegates. If you do not know the

history of Stump’s election, you are missing an interesting aspect of

recent Virginia political history.

bluefield.edu

 |

 admissions@bluefield.edu

KNOW AND BE KNOWN

for other priorities. I’ll get into that next time.

Yes, we’ve come a long way, baby, but there’s still a long way

to go.

Tracy Howard has served as the General Registrar/Director of

Elections for the City of Radford since 1992 and is President of

the Voter Registrars Association of Virginia.

A brief history

continued from previous page

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