The Ferguson City Council will have three African-American members for the first time in its roughly 120-year history after voters elected two more black officials during Tuesday’s St. Louis County elections, local media is reporting.
With questions swirling
about whether the predominantly black community would turn out in
high numbers, preliminary numbers suggest that almost 30 percent
of registered voters went to the polls. That more than doubles
the turnout from the last election, which was 12 percent.
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, results show that Ella
Jones, Wesley Bell and Brian Patrick Fletcher were elected to the
council, according to local KMOV. Jones and Bell are both black, bringing the
total number of black council members to three, including sitting
member Dwayne James.
— FOX2now (@FOX2now) April
8, 2015
Tuesday’s election was
the first since last August, when teenager Michael Brown was
killed by a police officer, throwing the town into turmoil. The
vote is widely seen as a test of community activists’ ability to
convert the anger and emotions behind the months-long street
protests into action at the ballot box.
“I’m worried that this is going to look bad for Ferguson
because I know the world is watching, and the world is
anticipating a large turnout,” LaRhonda Wilson, a voter in
the city’s Ward 3, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as
heavy rain and hail pelted the area.
The Ferguson City Council has six seats, with the mayor acting as
the seventh and tie-breaker. Three of those seats are up for a
vote, in Wards 1 through 3. Although 67 percent of Ferguson’s
21,000 residents are African-American, the outgoing City Council
had only one black member.
Elected to a three-year
term, the council members are paid $250 per month and face the
unenviable task of managing a city divided by racial tensions.
The council is expected to appoint the new city manager and
police chief at a meeting in June, replacing the officials who
resigned in the wake of last month’s Department of Justice (DOJ)
probe, which discovered a “pattern of unlawful conduct”
in Ferguson’s police department and the courts.
In Ward 3, the area where Brown was shot, the contest was between
local magistrate Wesley Bell and Pastor Lee Smith, both black. In
Ward 2, former Mayor Brian Fletcher is facing Bob Hudgins, one of
the participants in last year’s protests. Both are white, but
Hudgins noted in the campaign that his wife is black and they
have a biracial teenage son.
#FergusonElections:
City elects two African American Council Members today,
splitting council, 50% black, 50% white.
— Nick E. Smith (@SmithonPolitics)
April 8, 2015
Four candidates in Ward 1 – Ella Jones, Adrienne Hawkins, Doyle
McClellan and Mike McGrath – ran for the council seat vacated by
a police officer who resigned in the wake of the DOJ
investigation. Jones and Hawkins are black.
Smith, Hudgins and Jones were backed by the local Democratic
Party leadership and were widely expected to vote as a bloc if
they win.
Race, reforms eyed as Ferguson, Missouri, voters head to polls:
http://t.co/gLwp4Cf3pmpic.twitter.com/gnOCBdE5aN
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) April
7, 2015
More than half the city is registered to vote, but the turnout in
local elections has traditionally been low – most recently, only
12 percent voted, compared to the 70 percent turnout in the
presidential poll. Only 608 people have registered to vote since
Brown was shot, and officials reported only about 200 absentee
ballots were requested prior to Tuesday’s vote, indicating
relatively low interest in the election. However, community
activist Rasheen Aldridge thinks turnout will be higher than
usual.
“You can really tell that the people in the community
definitely want some change,” Aldridge told RT. “They
are excited about this election, excited that they can go to the
ballot box and make their voices heard.”
Having their voices heard in the local election is the residents’
best chance to achieve real change in local governance. “I
think this will be, hopefully, a game changer,” in Ferguson
as well as the other nearby localities, Aldridge said.
Last month, five Ferguson residents sent a letter to City Hall
asking mayor James Knowles to resign. In order to force a special
election, they would need to gather enough signatures – 15
percent of the registered voters in the last mayoral election –
by May 15.
Very early totals out of Ferguson. Activist-aligned Jones is
ahead in Ward 1, while Hudgins and Smith are behind in Wards 2
and 3.
— AoSHQ Decision Desk (@AoSHQDD) April
8, 2015