On November’s ballot, Alachua County citizens had the opportunity to vote on changing the commission’s voting system from single member districts to at large districts.
At-large districts allow for citizens to vote for commissioners that are not in their designated district. In single member districts, citizens are only allowed to vote for commissioners in their designated district.
The Alachua County Commission had previously been run under an at-large system, but in the 2022 general election, single member districts earned the majority vote and were instated. Controversy arose amongst voters during the 2022 election, as citizens were sent campaign mail that advertised Black leaders as endorsers of single member districts, when they had not been.
In the 2022 election, the option to convert the district system to single member districts passed by 2,567 votes.
After criticism from residents in a May meeting, the Alachua County Commission approved a referendum that “asks voters whether they would like to rescind the 2022 narrow passage of single-member districts,” according to alachuacounty.us.
This November, the referendum passed with more than 70% of citizens voting in support of at-large districts.
Alachua County Commissioner Anna Prizzia supports at-large districts in Alachua County. She said she believes that confining votes to specific districts will not be effective enough.
“We are commissioners that serve our entire county and the kinds of decisions that we’re making, things like roads and environmental protection and climate action planning and affordable housing,” she said. “Those things do not know political boundaries or districts. They're the kind of things that need attention across our entire country.”
Alachua County Commissioner Ken Cornell also believes in having an at-large system. He said collaboration is vital amongst commissioners.
“Many of the things we do are county-wide and require collaboration and cooperation amongst commissioners that live in different districts,” he said.
Cornell said people were upset they could not vote for commissioners on the board.
“What I was hearing over the last two years was a level of anger that I hadn't heard, with regards to folks not having a say in who they get to vote for for their county commissioner,” he said.
Susan Bottcher has been a political activist in Gainesville for 20 years, and served on the Gainesville City Commission from 2011 to 2014. Bottcher is a part of One Alachua County, an organization that heavily advocates for at-large districts.
One Alachua County’s website said single-member districts minimize representation as individuals can vote for only one commissioner. The website also says the commission having the ability to draw districts can bring gerrymandering and disenfranchisement to citizens in Alachua County.
Bottcher held information sessions and Q&As about the referendum to inform people about at-large districts. She supports at-large districts because she said it gives representation to citizens and their voices.
“With at-large districts, you have an opportunity to have up to five commissioners who would represent your voice, even if only two or three of them, of your preferred candidates, get elected,” she said. “At least you have multiple voices on the county commission.”
Bottcher said the narrow win for single-districts in the 2022 election was a depiction of uninformed voters.
“On a county-wide basis, for a referendum to pass that narrowly, shows that there were people who were kind of not sure about changing how we elected county commissioners,” she said.
Jannice Garry, president of the League of Women Voters of Alachua County, agrees the vote on single-member districts in 2022 was heavily swayed by disinformation.
“There was a very strategic, well funded campaign to get people to vote no, and it very clearly misrepresented some of the most pertinent Black leaders in Alachua County,” she said.
Some Alachua County citizens agree with single-member districts because they believe having a specific district representative, rather than multiple, will allow for that representative to have a wider knowledge of news impacting that area.
Joseph Hancock, an Alachua County resident, said single-member districts give rural areas a voice.
“Gainesville can outvote us every single time, so we won't have a chance at actually having a candidate from our area representing our interests,” he said. “We don’t ever see county commissioners in our area, ever, and so they’re not plugged into our community, and therefore they’re not aware of what’s going on in our community.”
In September, Florida Sen. Keith Perry filed a lawsuit against the commission in efforts to prevent the referendum from appearing on the ballot. A judge ruled that the language used on the ballot was in violation of Florida statute, but the referendum was still allowed to remain on the ballot.
The board recently allocated $100,000 of funds from general fund reserves for environmental studies to pay for legal fees in fighting the lawsuit filed by Perry, according to the Gainesville Sun. The lawsuit is ongoing.
Contact Sofia Meyers at smeyers@alligator.org. Follow her on X @SofiaMeyer84496.
