Moving Local Elections from February and April to The Fall

Three Wisconsin legislators wish to move the local spring elections to the fall. The move will save money and it will increase the turnout for voters casting ballots for the school board, county board, town board, city council, and mayor.

There is a downside to scheduling local elections to coincide with the congressional, presidential and state wide races. The idea was to prevent the coattail effect from influencing local races. Wisconsin is not the only state that ensures that local elections are as far removed from the partisan state and national elections as possible. They stagger the elections from Maine to California.

There are other problems with a fall local election:

• Local candidates will be competing for the grassroots workers with congressional candidates.
• In major markets, mayoral and county board candidates will be squeezed out of the television buys. Maybe that is a good thing.
• Most important, the voters will be focused on the higher level races and ignore the candidates for mayor or school board and ignore everything from the candidates' forums to the literature.

The higher voter turnout in November is a good reason to shift the elections, saving money is not.

Too bad we do not have a better way of increasing voter participation in the spring elections.

I will be on Wisconsin Public Radio with Joy Cardin doing the Week in Review at 8:00 am this morning.

 

Comments

[Mark F.]

Although this is likely true:

"Most important, the voters will be focused on the higher level races and ignore the candidates for mayor or school board and ignore everything from the candidates' forums to the literature."

given that so few people pay attention to the spring elections now is it really going to be worse if the spring elections are moved to the fall? It seems to me that so few people pay attention to the spring elections that it allows the hardcore partisans who seem to be the only ones to vote in the spring to have too much influence on what happens at the local level. Although the Supreme Court election last spring was not a local election, I think it's safe to say that hardly anyone really paid serious attention to it. I remember last spring asking people that I work with, who always vote in the the fall elections, if they were voting in the Supreme Court election and none of them ever knew that there WAS an election.

I think moving the spring election to the fall is a good idea.

[mandrake]

Making it easier to vote was also behind the idea of electronic voting. That worked out well, don't you agree?

Making term-limits too, except that idea ignores the actual built-in term-limits known as elections...

Election days should be a holiday. November, a national holiday, Spring, state holdays.

Voter turnout just might improve.

[xoff]

Maybe we could also quit pretending that people who run for local office are non-partisan, since many voters usually know who's the Repub and who's the Dem anyway.

[Katrina]

I'm not sure I agree that the local elections don't generate interest. There are 5 candidates running for Brenda Konkel's seat. I'm guessing there will be a big turnout in that district (although not as big as the presidential election). I think that increasing the number of candidates might generate more voter participation. There are only 2 Supreme Court candidates for this primary so it isn't very important to vote. The general election will probably draw more voters. Both Madison school board incumbents are running unopposed but in Marshall and Mt. Horeb, there are real challenges to incumbents. I think voter turnout might be heavier in those places. I agree with the poster who said voting days should be holidays. In Wisconsin, I believe employers are supposed to give voters 3 hours to go to the polls. Maybe someone can correct me on this.

[Molly]

This is what we find works: (Salt Lake County)

Early (electronic) Voting coupled with a push toward Vote by Mail.

Beginning three weeks prior to the election - during hours amenable to work/school schedules. Election Day being the last day to vote. Currently early voting sites are city halls and gov't offices.

Looking to change that to local malls, senior centers, etc. for additional later hour access.

Didn't raise the number of voters - but made Election Day not quite the madhouse it used to be. Our precinct workers were happy.

And - there's a county in Colorado - (name escapes me but I think it's Fort Collins, CO) that has early voting via Voting Centers and Mail in vote only. No precincts.

[Molly]

And yes, our municipal elections are in the Fall. We contract with County Elections and co-coordinate the ballot.

[Ordinary Jill]

I'm not sure it would be either better or worse, just different. Why not give it a try and see what the results are? In the absence of a compelling reason to keep local elections in the Spring, saving money is as good a reason as any to shift them. I'm not saying that it trumps good reasons to keep them as is, but I disagree that it's not a good reason at all.

A few weeks after the November election, I was surprised to have my local alderwoman ring my doorbell collecting nomination signatures. I'm always happy to help someone get on the ballot, but I wasn't in the mood to contemplate a new election season so quickly, and I'm someone who regularly votes in local elections and takes the time to research candidates' positions.

I'll vote on February 17, but I would have liked at least a month without any politicians ringing my doorbell.

[Michael Basford]

For what it's worth, when I did my failed run for Common Council two years ago and would do doors when it was -5 out, I promised the people answering the doors and letting me (and the arctic air) in that if I was elected I would work to change the Spring Election dates to a more temperate time. I should have promised something more popular.

[Gary Schepp]

Wisconsin needs to make some changes in their elections.

Have all elections other than municipal offices should be held during even years. Municipal offices could be held in odd years. Either the year after or before Presidential elections. The other odd year should only be open for special elections.

Conduct primary elections once in the spring. General elections as is normally conducted in November. Having 3 or 4 elections in one year is too much.

I'm a former resident of Wisconsin now living in Indiana. I hope to return to Wisconsin soon.

Indiana has their primary election the Tuesday after the first Monday. And their general the same as all states in November. In a 4 year cycle we have a minimum of 6 elections if there are no special or referendums.

My experience with filling positions for polling sites leads me to also be concerned with problems with more than 2 elections in a year. It is difficult enough as it is now to perform that function. Doing it for more elections would be very tasking and burn out the volunteers performing this task. At least for bigger counties or cities. Here in Allen County we had to fill 560 positions just for the Democratic side. Even though we filled the positions there would be problems when they couldn't fulfill the obligation due to medical, family or other circumstances. Then we had to scramble and find replacements.

In regards to municipal elections. It is my personal opinion that cities should have mayors. Not city managers. They should be elected not hired by the city council members. I might be wrong about vacancies in city council but they should not be appointed by remaining city council members on the board. It should be representatives within the district that has the vacancy. And there should not be at-large districts. Any other elected position in municipal government other than city council should be elected by eligible voters in the municipality including the mayor.