KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — On Election Day, voters in Knox County will decide how the city chooses who represents it on the Knoxville City Council when they vote on City Charter Amendment No. 2.
In January, Tennessee lawmakers passed a law proposed by Republican Representative Elaine Davis, who represents Knoxville, meant to ensure only voters living inside a district can pick the winner of that district.
Right now, districts across Knoxville vote for candidates in their specific districts in the primary elections. Then, in the general election, the entire city votes for all of those seats.
For example, let's say voters in District 1 pick two candidates in the primaries. Candidate "A" collects the most votes and Candidate "B" gets the second most. However, in the general election, voters across the city decide Candidate "B" is the best candidate for District 1.
This means the second-place finisher in the primaries wins the general election.
When voters head to the polls they will see a charter amendment calling to expand the idea of "empowering voters" across the city to choose candidates vying to represent certain regions of Knoxville.
Voting "for" this amendment means all city council seats will essentially turn into at-large representatives. There is also a rule calling on candidates to live in the region that they want to represent. It effectively expands the city's local elections to allow voters to decide on representatives from any district during both the primaries and general elections.
Voting "against" the amendment means falling in line with state law and following district-limited voting styles.
In this kind of voting, only voters in districts can pick candidates in the primary election and in the general election. Voters outside a district would not be able to decide who they want to represent that district on the city council.
Another city charter amendment will also appear on the ballot. This ballot effectively changes a small part of the election calendar to align District 5's elections with those of every other district. Voting against the amendment means District 5 will continue voting for its represents in one cycle, and every other city district will vote for representatives in other cycles.
You can view the sample ballot for this year's election on the county's website.