One of my main concerns is that by moving municipal elections to the same cycle as state and national elections our municipal elections will become partisan by default. There might be a case for partisan municipal elections in larger cities (maybe over 30,000) where voters may be unfamiliar with the candidates, but in smaller towns and villages, it will dramatically decrease the pool of potential candidates since "unaffiliated" is the largest group of registered voters. In our village of approx. 3,400, council members serve voluntarily (no stipend) and deal with quality-of-life issues, not national debates. Requiring unaffiliated voters to gather signatures will keep many very qualified residents from running, to the detriment of our governance.
For small municipalities like mine, it's hard enough to find people willing to run--adding partisan politics into it will make it even harder. And requiring unaffiliated voters to get petitions signed to be on the ballot will definitely decrease substantially those willing to run. Very unfortunate.
My March 15 op-ed opposing even-numbered years for municipal elections is here - https://www.hendersonvillelightning.com/four-seasons-politics/12563-even.html
One of my main concerns is that by moving municipal elections to the same cycle as state and national elections our municipal elections will become partisan by default. There might be a case for partisan municipal elections in larger cities (maybe over 30,000) where voters may be unfamiliar with the candidates, but in smaller towns and villages, it will dramatically decrease the pool of potential candidates since "unaffiliated" is the largest group of registered voters. In our village of approx. 3,400, council members serve voluntarily (no stipend) and deal with quality-of-life issues, not national debates. Requiring unaffiliated voters to gather signatures will keep many very qualified residents from running, to the detriment of our governance.
I didn’t get into that part of the debate but perhaps I should have. I like having municipal elections in odd years. Thanks for sharing your piece!
For small municipalities like mine, it's hard enough to find people willing to run--adding partisan politics into it will make it even harder. And requiring unaffiliated voters to get petitions signed to be on the ballot will definitely decrease substantially those willing to run. Very unfortunate.
Great point. Might be worth figuring out a better process for qualifying unaffiliated candidates for the ballot.