By JIM GENARO

Citizens of Asheville will get a chance to vote on whether they want municipal elections to be based on political parties or not, as election officials certified on July 31 that a petition drive calling for a referendum on the matter had succeeded.

The Buncombe County Board of Elections validated 5,022 signatures on the petition circulated by Let Asheville Vote, a local activist group that had called for a public referendum.

To get the measure on the upcoming electionís ballot, 5,000 signatures were needed.

The group turned in 6,215 signatures, but election officials initially disqualified many of them because the addresses listed did not match county records, including 519 signers who did not live in the City of Asheville.

Election officials mailed cards to all of the signers who listed Asheville addresses, but were on record as living outside the city limits. The signatures of those who replied and confirmed their residency were validated on a case-by-case basis at the July 31 meeting.

The petitionís success means that City Councilís vote to change to partisan elections will likely be suspended until after the upcoming election.

Council voted in June to change the way city elections are held, so that candidates affiliated with political parties would compete in primaries and political affiliations would be listed on the ballots.

Meanwhile, independent and third-party candidates would have to collect more than 2,300 signatures to get listed on the general-election ballot.

Councilís 4-3 vote, which was opposed by Mayor Terry Bellamy and councilmen Carl Mumpower and Jan Davis, reversed a 1994 vote by council to eliminate party affiliations from the cityís elections.

Advocates of partisan elections, including Councilman Brownie Newman, who introduced the change, say that political parties already play a significant role in local elections and that the change would only create greater transparency.

However, critics of partisan elections objected to the requirements made of independent candidates and charged that the move was a power grab by the four Democratic council members who supported the change.

Newman was joined by Vice Mayor Holly Jones and council members Robin Cape and Bryan Freeborn in supporting the switch to partisan elections.

According to the Board of Elections, Asheville has 28,421 registered Democrats, 12,722 Republicans and 15,079 unaffiliated voters.

Under the system that has been in place since 1994, anyone can run in the non-partisan primary after submitting an application and a $75 fee.

Meanwhile, Let Asheville Vote organizers insist that the group is not opposed to partisan elections, specifically, but to the process by which it was passed.

A statement on the groupís Web site last Wednesday said, ìIt is not the position of the coalition to promote either partisan elections or nonpartisan elections. It is only our desire to see the matter decided by the voting public.î

City Council must now hammer out the details of the upcoming election, as well as the wording of the referendum. Bellamy said she hopes to start doing so at councilís Aug. 14 meeting.

†The nonpartisan primary is expected to take place Oct. 12. Bellamy has said she would support putting the referendum question on that ballot, before the Nov. 6 general election.