In addition to statewide races, several local elections will be decided by Virginians this fall – including school boards. However, some of those ballots don’t have any candidates on them.
What happens if you have an election, but nobody shows up to run for office? That's the case in a handful of school board elections across Virginia where seats will be on the ballot, but candidates will not. J. Miles Coleman at the University of Virginia Center for Politics says the pandemic changed how school boards work.
"Since the pandemic, you have school boards really being put under the microscope," Coleman says. "And I think what’s come with that is more of the typical polarization, partisanship we’ve seen in some of these other races."
Voters in Northumberland County are considering ditching their elected school board in favor of going back to an appointed school board.
"It's a real shame because now there's talk about going back to appointed school boards," says Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School at George Mason University. "Virginia was late to the game to go to elected school boards when they did. But I suppose if nobody is going to run for office, these positions need to be filled somehow."
Voters in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Loudoun County will be considering candidates for School Board. That’s in addition to the statewide elections for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
