Maybe you hadn’t heard but it’s true: Greensboro’s city council election, normally held in November in odd-numbered years at four-year intervals, will be held this month! Election Day lands on July 26, and early voting starts today!
Why? It’s Trump’s fault, of course!
To fully understand, we must look to the 2020 Census, a federally mandated count of the population of the United States, held every 10 years. It’s an important document because it shows us how to best allocate many federal, state and even local resources. It has a profound effect on governance — population growth in North Carolina documented by the 2020 Census gave us an extra US House rep this year. And it necessitates the redrawing of every political district in the country, including the city of Greensboro.
But! The Trump Administration pissed all over the 2020 Census: fighting to exclude non-citizen immigrants in the total, micromanaging some of the more technical aspects of the count and other plays to make the numbers more friendly to Republicans, with a little help from the Supreme Court, which voted to allow an early ending to the count, without publishing an opinion.
The data was not official until April 2021, after Trump left office, leaving history to wonder what Trump might have done with the data had it come in early like he wanted, or if he won the election and, with it, custodianship of the Census data.
As it happened, North Carolina would not be able to make a district for its 14th House seat until this year — it’s up for grabs in the fall. Greensboro City Council voted to push the election out one year because they were unable to draw accurate districts in time.
So the Greensboro municipal primary was folded into the ballot back in May — itself a date pushed back from March because of unconstitutional gerrymandering by NC Republicans in the General Assembly.
We’ll vote on the rest of them in November as usual. But the Greensboro City Council election is in July. The Greensboro City Council election is in July! THE GREENSBORO CITY COUNCIL ELECTION IS IN JULY!!!
Please vote accordingly.
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