Non-Partisan Elections

Roger Suddith was elected and served as an alderman in the 1980s.  He represents the last gasp of a Democrat politician serving in office in Washington under the partisan election system.  As for the mayor, it dates back to the 1950s, when Earl Zimmerman served as a Democrat.  That is long enough ago that the political parties were still evolving with a complete switch in philosophies.

Regardless of the importance of political affiliation in the city-level decision-making process, placing a political party next to a candidate's name certainly affected their chances of winning in Washington.

The last democrat to even try to win an elected office in Washington was David Knight, who unsuccessfully ran against Amanda Shipp for Ward IV Alderman in 2007.

Lilija Stevens had retired from teaching and had expressed interest in being an election judge in 2014.  Upon inquiring, she was told that since she had been choosing the Republican ticket in previous primaries she was considered a Republican, and they didn't need any Republican election judges, they needed Democratic ones.  Advice to her was to declare herself a Democrat in the next primary election, then she could be an election judge.  Which she did.

This presented problems, as Stevens wanted to vote for candidates in Washington elections.  In the spring of 2017 especially, when there were several contested races including mayor in the primary election.  Since all candidates were Republicans, the primary would decide the winner, and only voters declaring themselves Republicans had any say on who the winner was.  Stevens, if she declared herself Republican, would lose her election judge status.

Stevens started appearing at city council meetings asking about the possibility of making city elections nonpartisan.  She spoke during audience comments at three city meetings in September and October.

The issue was first officially discussed by the city council at a November 13, 2017 meeting, the discussion between the council talked about potential voter confusion, "unintended consequences," and even if Washington's entire form of government would need to be changed as a result.  The all-republican council was not going to move forward on the issue on its own.

At the time, Washington was the only Tazewell County community with partisan city elections.  After the city council failed to discuss the issue at their December 4 meeting, members of the public decided to push the issue for a referendum vote by gathering almost 700 resident signatures in ten days, well more than what they needed to get the vote on the ballot.

The citizen petition put the referendum on the ballot for March, 2018.  The results of the vote was a resounding 73-27 % margin for the switch to nonpartisan elections.

In Washington's first non-partisan election in April 2019, all four wards had contested races for the first time in decades.

In April 2023, Jamie Smith was elected as alderperson, an office she could not have held under the partisan election system, as federal employees are prohibited from running in partisan elections.  Smith, an employee of the postal service, became Washington's first federal employee to hold elected office.