Published Thursday, March 23, 2006 in East Valley Opinions of the Arizona Republic as “Ranked voting would eliminate primaries, save money.”
Excited for the May elections? This week’s city primaries only did part of the job. In Tempe after spending $110,000 on the primary, one remaining council seat plus bond issues remain. Mesa shelled out a similar amount for its primary to elect three council members, but the big property tax issue will be on the May ballot. Chandler, meanwhile, at a cost of $130,000 managed to fill only one of three council seats while re-electing Mayor Boyd Dunn.
Turnout, while not unusual, was to put it mildly, awful. Only one in six registered voters cast ballots across Tempe, Mesa Districts 4, 5 and 6, and Chandler. Mesa’s District 6 where Scott Somers ousted incumbent Janie Thom had the highest turnout at 19 percent. Gilbert picked up the rear with only 7 percent of registered voters participating in their bond election. In Chandler even though a mayoral contest boosted turnout, just one in six registered voters cast ballots.
May run-off elections in Chandler and Tempe may well be decided by voter attrition as turnout drops even further. In Mesa we have the opposite situation. With a hotly contested proposed property tax on the May ballot, turnout will soar comparatively, but those added voters will have missed the city council races, including Kyle Jones’ likely re-election in District 4 with only 1,312 votes.
We could boost turnout by holding these elections in November, but then these races would be lost amid the national and state level candidates and ballot initiatives. So despite lower turnout, separate nonpartisan municipal elections still make sense, but there’s no reason to do it twice. Read the rest of this entry »