LU voters swell Heritage precinct to largest in city

The Heritage Elementary School precinct has grown to become the largest in the city and now has more voters than state law suggests is desirable.

Heritage Elementary, a Ward III polling place whose district encompasses Liberty University, had 5,548 active registered voters as of Jan. 12, according to the Registrar Carolyn Sherayko.

On-campus LU students make up close to 3,820, or nearly 70 percent, of those voters. This week, LU asked the city to consider moving the polling place to a less-congested location closer to the school.

“We’ve received a lot of criticism for canceling classes and bussing students to the polls on Election Day, but we only do that because we don’t have our own polling place,” Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said in an interview.

“We would just like it to be closer to the university,” he added. “It’s a convenience issue … It doesn’t have to be right on campus, but maybe near campus, within walking distance.”

In the past year and a half, Heritage Elementary has ballooned to become the single biggest precinct in the city, according to the registrar’s office, eclipsing the previous titleholder, Moose Lodge No. 715 in Ward I, by 934 voters.

LU has complained that the elementary school suffers from traffic congestion, inadequate parking and complications related to the fact that it still holds classes on Election Day.

Heritage Elementary is currently the only city precinct with more than 5,000 active registered voters.

Under state law, precincts are not permitted to have more than 5,000 voters at the time they are established. It was not immediately clear if pushing past that mark at a later date obligates a locality to revise its precinct boundaries.

Section 24.2-307 of the state code specifies only one situation in which a revision would be required and that is after a precinct sees more than 4,000 votes cast in a presidential election.

In 2008, Heritage Elementary missed that trigger by 306 votes. The precinct had a total of 3,695 voters pass through its doors that year, according to figures posted online by the Virginia State Board of Elections.

New polling places must be designated by City Council through the approval of a city ordinance, which is then subject to ratification by the U.S. Department of Justice under the federal review requirements established in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Each voting precinct is allowed just one polling place. All Virginia communities are currently barred from changing their precinct boundaries until after the 2010 U.S. Census is complete.

The city attorney has said it is not clear if that embargo also applies to relocating a polling place in an existing precinct. City Council plans to discuss LU’s request on Feb. 9.

Lynchburg City Schools spokeswoman Leigh Farmer said Thursday that the division had no comment on LU’s proposal.

LU has not identified a specific location it would prefer in lieu of Heritage Elementary. Falwell did say it would not be unheard of for a polling place to be located on or near a college campus, pointing to the University of Virginia as an example.

Charlottesville operates a polling place in UVa’s Alumni Hall across the street from the university’s Central Grounds.

The Charlottesville registrar, Sheri Iachetta, said there are three different polling places that on-campus UVa students could be assigned to depending on where their dormitory is. Each of the locations is near campus, although Iachetta said that was not by design.

“It wasn’t student-driven. It just worked out that way,” she said, noting that all three locations were longstanding polling places.

Falwell said he would like to see a new polling place established in LU’s precinct in time for the May elections if possible. He said he understood that some may oppose the request because they disapprove of the new influence LU’s Republican-leaning student body has at the polls, but suggested that blocking the change could “backfire.”

“I think it would be wise for the Democrats on council to support this, because otherwise the students might get the idea that they don’t want them to vote,” he said. “And there’s something about college kids, a rebelliousness … I think it might be counterproductive.”