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Johnson may not be alone in feeling college blast
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Published: September 27, 2009
Councilwoman Joycelyn Johnson got a sound thumping in the Sept. 15 Democratic primary from a Winston-Salem State University senior who was a toddler when Johnson first won her East Ward seat in 1993.
Derwin Montgomery's election "was a class project and a back way to get in the door," said Johnson, who just a few months ago nominated Montgomery for a human-relations award. "When you look at the bloc [of voters], it was just students who are unaware of stuff and had not been engaged."
Johnson, who received 228 votes to Montgomery's 530, has raised questions about extra credit being given to students who voted early. Elections officials say that unless it can be proved that professors told students to vote for a particular candidate in exchange for extra credit, there's no violation of elections law. WSSU Chancellor Donald Reaves said through his spokeswoman, Nancy Young, that the university is investigating the matter, but to the best of their knowledge only one professor offered the extra credit, and it was not for voting for any specific candidate.
"Derwin saw a chance to awaken a sleeping giant, and Lord did he do it," said Larry Little, one of Montgomery's professors and an adviser to his campaign. Little, a former city alderman, said he did not offer extra credit for voting. He said that council members haven't paid enough attention to students at the campus, the largest employer in the East Ward.
Johnson is a tireless, effective councilwoman who has worked hard for all of her ward, including WSSU.
Montgomery is an effective campaigner who won by using Facebook, concentrating on public safety and economic development and getting students to vote early. No Republicans filed to run for the East Ward seat, so Montgomery will in all likelihood take his seat on the council in December. In the years to come, there may well be more student candidates. Incumbent council members shouldn't underestimate them.
Johnson said she knew that WSSU posed the potential for an upset for her. But she didn't see Montgomery coming.
She nominated him for the human-relations award after seeking information about students involved in the community. The council honored Montgomery for his work on campus with NAACP and other groups. "And I hadn't heard anything else from him until I heard he was going to run against me," Johnson said. "That's the ironic thing."
He did give her a call to let her know he was running.
In a letter to the county elections board, Johnson questioned the offers of extra credit, as well as whether all the WSSU students who voted early were indeed city residents. The board found no violation of election law in the extra-credit offers, and said that concern "might be better addressed by university administration." The board did throw out two ballots because the voters were not residents.
Johnson doesn't believe that the school gave her the same access to students while campaigning that Montgomery had, despite her efforts toward that end. University officials said it would have been impossible for her to have had the same access since she is not a student, and they were unaware she had requested access. "Because of the situation with Mr. Montgomery being a student, we would have been even more sensitive to her request," Chancellor Reaves and Young, the spokeswoman, said in an e-mail to the Journal.
Montgomery said he will represent the whole ward while working and going to graduate school. Johnson isn't sure he'll be able to do that. And she worries about the power that the WSSU students can exert as a voting bloc.
"I'm concerned about the inexperience and the disconnect with the rest of the community," she said. "You're talking about a student bloc making decisions for the rest of the ward…. Those kids don't know the issues."
Reaves and Young said that many voters "often are not as educated about the candidates or the issues as they possibly should be. If the issue is students, then what is the alternative? Do we keep students at all college campuses from voting? Do we only let them vote in national elections?"
Whatever their knowledge of issues or lack thereof, the students shamed most of their elders in the East Ward by voting.
John Railey is an editorial writer for the Journal. He can be reached at jrailey@wsjournal.com or at 727-7357
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