Amendment 2 fails: How will Knoxville City Council elections work?

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ( WATE ) — An amendment that aimed to change how Knoxville elects city councilmembers has failed.

The race was close, with 49% of people voting in support of the amendment and 51% against it. Now that the decision has been made, how will this affect city elections?

Knoxville City Council is currently made up of six councilmembers representing each of the city's districts and three "at-large" councilmembers. With the failure of amendment two, that won't change, but it does decide who votes for these councilmembers in the general election.

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"What it means is, there will be a primary within the six council districts, and those top two vote-getters in the primary will then run in the general election but only in their district. For generations, it's been that they then ran city-wide, and now it's more along the line with pretty much every other system there is," 6 News Political Contributor George Korda said.

Amendment Two proposed changing the council to six "regional at-large" and three citywide at-large seats, which would then be voted on by all Knoxville voters in both the primary and general elections.

"For example, a comparison would be if Congressman Tim Burchett and his opponent ran in a primary and they were the top two, and then they had to run statewide to win the congressional seat," Korda explained.

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Opponents of the amendment, like Councilwoman Amelia Parker and State Rep. Sam McKenzie , argued it would hurt representation.

"At-large elections definitely tend to dilute the minority vote and dilute the minority voice in an election, so it can absolutely deter minority candidates. It can hinder minority races," Parker said.

All Knoxville voters will still have a say in the three at-large city council seats.

"What I'm glad about is that the transition wasn't an all or nothing, that it went from all at-large to no at-large," said Maryville College Political Science Professor Mark O'Gorman. "There's still some ability for city citizens to pick their best person out of the rest of the group along with their own geography, so I think there's some compromise occurring there."

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This system will be in place for the city elections in 2025.

The reason for this amendment was because of a law passed by the Tennessee General Assembly last year that outlawed Tennessee's previous system.