Falwell: Suggested New Ward III Poll Location ‘Slap In The Face’ To Liberty

Liberty University students vote in the 2009 gubernatorial election at Heritage Elementary School. The recent increase in LU voters has led to the debate about moving the Ward III polling location.

By Alicia Petska
The Lynchburg News & Advance

Liberty University Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. is denouncing City Council’s recent rejection of two LU-backed polling place sites as a “travesty” designed to suppress the LU student vote.

“It’s obvious to me the goal was to discourage as many Ward III citizens from voting as possible,” Falwell said, renewing LU’s concerns that Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene, the current leading contender for the new voting location, is inaccessible and unsafe.

“You have to ask yourself what is the motive of the five Democrats on council in choosing a difficult-to-find church on a residential road that is not equipped to handle this kind of traffic,” Falwell said. “Something smells bad.”

Falwell, who’s been aggressively promoting local voting among his students in an effort to affect future City Council decisions, went on to compare the situation to the disenfranchisement faced by minority voters in the Jim Crow era.

“Liberty students consider this a slap in the face,” he said. “And all other citizens in Ward III, which is generally conservative, should also consider it a slap in the face.”

Lynchburg City Council members roundly denied that politics played a role in their recent decisions about the relocation of the Heritage Elementary School polling place. Falwell’s ire in this matter is directed at what he repeatedly described as the “five Democrats” on council. Of the seven council members, six list themselves as independents. Ward III Councilman Jeff Helgeson runs as a Republican.

Mayor Joan Foster, one of the five under fire by Falwell, said she recently received a phone call from an LU student upset over the allegations of voter suppression swirling around campus.

“It is not true,” she said. “That is misinformation. It is their right to vote here. That’s a given. We’re just trying to choose the best place for everyone to vote.”

“This was not politically motivated. I’m very sorry that’s been the accusation,” she added. “… It’s always been my wish that political hats be left at the door of City Council and we just work to do what’s best for the community. I am just trying to make the best decision.”

Earlier this month, in response to an LU request, council began taking steps to move the Heritage Elementary polling place prior to the May elections. Over the past two years, Heritage Elementary has grown to become the city’s largest voting precinct, due primarily to the influx of student voters.

LU, citing concerns that the elementary school is no longer adequate to accommodate Election Day crowds, has been bucking to get the polling place moved somewhere closer to its campus. It recommended both Thomas Road Baptist Church and the Candlers Station shopping center as viable choices.

Council as recently as last week considered both those options and rejected them, citing concerns ranging from the fairness of choosing an LU-adjacent site, traffic conditions along Candlers Mountain Road and the fact that one of the recommendations, Candlers Station, is located outside the precinct in question.

Council has instead focused its search on Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene on Wards Ferry Road, a relatively new building located near the center of the precinct. LU has raised multiple safety concerns about that location since it was proposed and submitted several reports to council on the matter.

The Lynchburg Electoral Board, which is formally vetting the site, is due to deliver its report next week. A public hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday. Council will likely decide then whether to move the polling place or leave it at Heritage Elementary.

Vice Mayor Bert Dodson, who said he submitted Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene for consideration as a compromise between the needs of LU and the precinct at large, dismissed any suggestion that council was trying to undermine one ward or voting bloc.

“We’re not suppressing anything,” he said. “We’re doing what’s best for the City of Lynchburg. I hope Chancellor Falwell comes to the public hearing where he can express his opinion just like everyone else. I’m looking forward to hearing the opinions Tuesday.”

Last week, Helgeson and Councilman Turner Perrow called a special meeting and attempted unsuccessfully to get LU’s suggestions added to the list of sites under consideration. Helgeson referenced in part the safety considerations that had been raised by LU and echoed in a preliminary report issued by the Greater Lynchburg Transit Company that day.

Councilman Randy Nelson made a counter-motion that would have allowed other sites to be considered if a serious hazard at Lynchburg First Church of the Nazarene could be demonstrated that night. That motion failed with only Nelson and Foster voting in support.

Nelson later expressed surprise that Helgeson and Perrow opposed his motion.

“They and I were not on different pages,” he said. “I wanted to hear what the specific safety concerns were, see if they could be verified and, if they did exist, whether they could be corrected before May or not.”

In a different interview, Nelson said he felt the defeat of his motion indicated there were no genuine safety concerns.

“This flushed out the fact that was just a ruse to schedule this meeting,” he said. “They didn’t want to talk about safety. They wanted to talk about why we should leave Heritage and go to Liberty. But that was not relevant (because it had already been discussed and dismissed by council earlier.)”

At the time of the vote, Perrow said he was not prepared to provide definitive evidence of a safety hazard and asked that the electoral board be given a chance to assess the LU sites first.

Helgeson said later he felt Nelson’s motion was “disingenuous” because council already had reports from LU and GLTC outlining the church’s accessibility challenges. He voted against the motion because he felt its only intent was to slow the process down until it was too late for additional sites to be considered in time for May.

“We did explore safety issues,” he said. “We heard from GLTC and we heard from LU. Even without those analyses, all you have to do is drive through that area. Everyone who lives on Wards Ferry Road knows there’s a traffic concern there.”

“Those are the facts. It’s not political favoritism. It’s the facts,” he added, referencing an earlier comment made by Nelson. “For them to thwart even discussing other locations and having a public hearing says to me they don’t want to hear from the voters of this precinct.”

Falwell, who said his students were angry and offended over the way this has been handled, said Nelson’s motion was nothing more than a “little game.”

“It was all designed to kill it (LU’s recommendations) without coming out and saying it,” he said. “It was transparent, and our students see through it.”

“I think you’re going to see much more turnout among the students in May than you would have if they had just chosen a safe, convenient polling place … The site they did choose does just the opposite. It makes it more difficult and more unsafe for people to vote.”

LU’s Student Government Association sent out a notice and set up a Facebook group urging students to attend the hearing Tuesday.

In those messages, the association described the upcoming City Council elections as the most important in LU history and said the “anti-Liberty folks” on council appear to be trying to dilute their influence by choosing a bad polling place to discourage them from voting.

“It is important you attend this meeting. This outrage must be stopped,” read the e-mail, which noted that buses will be provided to take students to the hearing.

The public hearing will be part of the 7:30 p.m. council meeting this Tuesday in City Hall, 900 Church St.