Forsyth County
All of the individual cities within Forsyth County provide sufficient
representation for racial minorities, and the county as a whole does
not have any boards or governing bodies that are glaringly
unrepresentative. The Forsyth County Board of Commissioners consists of
seven members who serve four year staggered terms. They are elected
through partisan elections in which six of the commissioners are
elected from two multi-member districts and one is elected from the
county at large. There are currently two African American members who
sufficiently represent the 23.7% of the population which is African
American.The Forsyth County School Board consists of nine members whose elections are not staggered. Four of the members are elected from one district and two from another, while the remaining three are elected from the county at large. Currently, two of the school board members are African American, again, sufficiently representing the African American population. The eight City Council members in Winton-Salem, Forsyth Countyís largest city, are elected from each of eight districts. Their elections occur every four years and are not staggered.
There is, however, a progressive community in the county that has recognized that elections need to be monitored and changed. An article in the local Winston-Salem Journal mentioned a group called CHANGE, who monitored the primary elections held in July of 2004. This group was then going to meet with the County Board of Elections and work with them to improve the election system. An added bonus, the city of Winston-Salem it self has nine colleges and universities in and around it. While there are no immediate problems in Forsyth County it seems like a community that would be open to our ideas.