Not If, But When: Scheduling Election Day

[Image courtesy of ivn.us]

One issue that is constantly being discussed in communities across the country is the timing of Election Day. Sometimes the discussion is a moot point – special elections, for example, rarely come at convenient times for voters or election officials and so they are almost uniformly a challenge. But what about the interplay between elections at different levels of government? I’ve covered the issue numerous times on this blog but an article from yesterday’s Sun-Sentinel did a nice job of framing the issue over the weekend with regards to upcoming votes about Election Day in South Florida:

Tax increases work. Controversial projects help. Scandal is best.

Without drama to get people riled up, it’s hard to attract voters to March elections such as the Tuesday contests in 23 cities, towns and villages in Broward and Palm Beach counties.

The low turnout and high cost — a March election can top $100,000 — has local governments in both counties debating when it’s best to hold their elections.

In a referendum Tuesday, Oakland Park is asking voters to move the city’s elections from March to November. More than half of Broward’s local governments have switched to November in the past 10 years.

Lake Worth is also holding a referendum on election dates, asking residents to move the city’s elections from November to March. Almost all other municipal elections in Palm Beach County are held in March.

Proponents of November elections argue that it’s the best date because it’s cheaper and that’s where (when?) the voters are:

It’s generally more expensive to hold local elections in March than November. That’s because cities that hold elections in November of even-numbered years can piggyback on the federal, state and county elections that are already being held.

In March, municipalities pay the full cost, including poll worker salaries and ballot printing.

The high-profile contests in November draw much higher turnouts — about 70 percent in recent presidential elections and 50 percent in recent gubernatorial years — than March city elections, which sometimes attract single-digit turnout percentages.

But proponents of spring elections say that local government – and local candidates can get lost in the mix of a fall election and so the extra cost is worth it:

In November, the municipal elections are at the bottom of the ballot and are an afterthought for many people. Voters who go to the trouble to turn out for a March election likely know the issues and the candidates, said Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher.

“They become extremely educated voters,” Bucher said. “They’re being driven out by an interest in their city.”

In November, [Boca Raton Mayor Susan] Whelchel said, it’s much harder for a local council or commission candidate to break through the noise and compete with the better-funded candidates for Congress, state Senate, state House and County Commission. Local issues get lost when they’re at the bottom of the list of all those elections.

“If I had to compete with all of those levels of elected officials, not only would my voice would have had to be much louder, my costs would have been much higher,” said Oakland Park Commissioner Anne Sallee, who didn’t seek a second term in Tuesday’s election. “I don’t think I would have run if it were a presidential year and I had to compete with the president and the senators and the legislators and the congressmen.”

There are also other considerations. The first is voter fatigue, though this can cut both ways; voters may not work all the way through a long ballot, but they also might not turn out for multiple elections with shorter ballots. Speaking of ballots, the 2012 experience has left many communities, especially in South Florida, wary of the effects of ballots with lots and lots of races. Finally, combining elections involves very different logistics with regards to polling places and voting equipment, with responsibility for managing those logistics falling largely on higher-level (usually county) officials who may or may not be happy to let their local counterparts help carry the load. Of course, getting in sync with other communities in the area (which seems to be part of the motivation for tomorrow’s votes) can also help.

As with many other issues, the solution isn’t clear-cut … and unless there is an effort to impose a single date (which, as we saw last year in Arizona, won’t make everyone happy) we are likely to see continued debates about when, exactly, local communities will hold Election Day.