Is the purpose of an election system to declare a winner at the earliest possible moment, or to give the greatest reasonable number of citizens a voice?
That is the question Knoxville City Councilis about to decide for us.
Council is considering a charter amendment that would declare any council candidate elected after winning a majority in the August primary. No November general election. No second chance for voters to consider the two finalists. The race would simply be over. If you are among the many Knoxvillians who regularly vote in November but miss the city primary, your representative could be chosen before you ever reach the polls.
From a candidate’s perspective, the amendment has obvious appeal. It would shorten the campaign season, meaning
fewer debates and less scrutiny. A candidate would merely have to win in August and go home to rest on their laurels until their January swearing in.
No matter how nice this may sound to our nine-member council, this proposed change is ruinous for the other 202,012 residents. Election rules should be written for citizens, not candidates.
The numbers demonstrate the stakes. In 2025, a total of 9,782 votes were cast across Knoxville’s five district council primaries. In November, those same five races drew 21,776 votes - more than twice as many. Participation increased in every district.
The 11,994 new voters in November helped determine who would represent them. Under the proposed amendment, their opportunity to do so would not have existed. Many of those races would have ended in August.
James Madison’s answer to faction was not to narrow the political sphere, but to widen it. In Federalist No. 39, he described a republic as a government deriving its power from “the great body of the people.” Primary voters are citizens, and their votes matter. But they cannot be reasonably described as Knoxville’s “great body of the people” when thousands more participate in November.
While we should purse efficiency, and cost cutting measures whenever possible, we must also protect our democratic republic. Democracy has operating costs, and an election cannot be called wasteful when more citizens participate in it.
Few elected officials have a greater effect on your daily life than your City Council representative. Council decisions shape zoning, development, roads, public safety, parks, and taxes. This election must remain open to the broadest participation.
We should not treat broader participation as redundancy. What may seem unnecessary to a few is, in practice, the election in which thousands more Knoxvillians participate. We should preserve that broader opportunity for the voters of today, and for the generations after us who will inherit our city.
Do not close the polls before the voters arrive. Call your City Council member and plead with them to not support this amendment.
Jack Coker is a Knoxville commercial real estate broker with Avison Young. He serves as board president of YES! Knoxville and president of the Belle Morris Neighbors Association. His work focuses on transportation, thoughtful urban development and civic life in Knoxville.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Tell city council not to close polls before voters arrive | Opinion
