Elections in Franklin County, Virginia

Close elections

1963 general election in Gills Creek district

Incumbent J. Spotswood Burwell was re-elected, 209 to 208, over challenger Virgil C. Carter.

1979 general election in Union Hall district

Republican attorney Barry James (Jim) Jefferson won election to an open seat, 616 to 615, over Democrat J. Paul Holland, Jr., a farmer. The seat opened upon the retirement of incumbent Alton C. Kirk (elected 1951, 1959, 1963, 1967, 1971, and 1975). In the June primary, Holland secured the Democratic nomination by defeating two other candidates, with these district-wide totals: Holland, 448; DuPont employee Page A. Matherly, 286; insurance agent Raymond Cundiff, 260.

"Peggy Allman said that she 'knows of no other instance' in the county of such a victory," reported the Franklin News-Post on November 8. Apparently Ms. Allman, Franklin County's Central Registrar, was unfamiliar with the 1963 election.

During the polling, a voting machine locked up in Dickinson precinct, causing paper ballots to be used until a technician arrived to reset the machine. Dickinson happened to be the most heavily Democratic of the three precincts; Holland led there by 66 votes. Yet in the primary the previous June, Holland had trailed Matherly by 112 votes in Dickinson precinct.

"Landslide" Jim Jefferson was elected chairman of the board for three of the four years that he served. Instead of standing for re-election in 1983, Jefferson ran for the Virginia House of Delegates but lost. Later, in 1987, Jefferson was appointed county attorney, responsible (unlike his overworked immediate predecessor) for advising the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals.

In 1981, population shifts precipitated redistricting. All seven districts needed adjustment. Union Hall district was too large; neighboring Snow Creek district was too small. Although there may have been simpler choices, Dickinson precinct was moved from Jefferson's Union Hall district to the fairly-Democratic Snow Creek district. It appeared that Republican Jefferson had improved his own chances by pushing Matherly and his Democratic neighbors out of the district. Matherly cried foul; he found himself in a constituency already represented by a two-term Democrat, Gordon Washburn. Nevertheless, the remapping had only cost Matherly 35% of his votes; 65% accompanied him in Dickinson precinct.

Matherly sat out the next two elections. Even so, Washburn lost the 1983 primary to C. Noell Parcell. Parcell was elected to the board (which is inevitable for a Democratic nominee in Snow Creek) and elected chairman in his first year, 1984. (Rocky Mount Supervisor David A. Melesco had also been elected chairman during his first year, 1980.) Washburn was returned to office in 1987. Then, in 1991, Dickinson precinct carried Matherly to a primary victory over Washburn. Having no opposition in the general election, Matherly had finally won a seat, if not the one he first wanted.

Snow Creek is the one election district in Franklin County where a Democratic nominee is unbeatable (going back 60 years). It was only when he ran an independent campaign in 2005 that Matherly lost his seat (to W. Leland Mitchell, the Democratic nominee).

Turnover

Having served one year on the board, Blackwater Supervisor W. Wayne Angell was elected chairman in 1989. After presiding for two years, Angell declined re-nomination to the post in favor of Boone Supervisor Homer G. Murray. On 4 January 1991, the Franklin News-Post reported: "Last week Angell said he believes the chairmanship should be changed from time to time, adding that it is a time-consuming duty." In 1996, Angell resumed the chairmanship, holding the post continuously through 2007.

Sources for this page:

• Franklin County Registrar of Voters
• Franklin County Supervisors Order Books
• Franklin News-Post, 1941-2006
• State Board of Elections