Orange County Could Change Election Method for Commissioners

The Orange County Board of Commissioners is split into two districts, in which residents of both vote for its members.

District One includes Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and selects three members. District Two includes the rest of Orange County and selects two members. The final two members of the board are elected at-large.

Commissioner Mark Dorosin says some residents aren’t happy with the current system.

“Folks in District Two, in particular, feel like they are at a disadvantage and many of those folks are conservative and feel like the board has a more homogeneous partisan bent.”

Residents vote for board members in their respective district in the primary. But in the general election, it’s a general vote.

Dorosin says the board is having a work session Tuesday evening and will discuss changing the general election to voting by district, as in the primary.

“You’d still have districts but all the elections from those districts would be by the district residents.”

He says some current residents of District Two voiced concern that their primary votes for board members don’t matter, because they get overrun by District One in the general election.

“Even if you are able to get to the polling place and cast a ballot that’s going to be counted, if the sense is it just doesn’t matter because of the way the legislative district or commissioner district that I’m in, people are disaffected. The paranoid conspiracy theorist in me says that’s what folks hope will happen.”

Dorosin says he thinks the system should change to benefit all of Orange County, because the current system gives District One more power.

“I think that’s an odd hybrid model. I think it would be much more fair if, given that we have a district system, that those districts elect those representatives.”

The board will meet at seven o’clock Tuesday night at the Whitted Building in Hillsborough.

Photo via Orange County