Senator Javier Valdez, NPI propose legislation to let WA cities switch elections to even years

For the first time since the 1960s, cities in Wash­ing­ton would be allowed to hold their reg­u­lar­ly-sched­uled in even-num­bered years, when data shows that vot­er turnout is high­er and much more diverse, under a bill intro­duced by Sen­a­tor Javier Valdez (D‑46th Dis­trict: Seat­tle) and devel­oped by our team at NPI.

Sen­ate Bill 5723 gives cities and towns across the Ever­green State the option of switch­ing the tim­ing of their elec­tions from odd-num­bered to even-num­bered years. Cur­rent state law requires that cities and towns go in odd-num­bered years. Our bill amends that statute and spec­i­fies a process by which a city or town may begin elect­ing its coun­cilmem­bers, may­or, and oth­er offi­cials in even years.

Char­ter coun­ties already have the free­dom to choose their tim­ing (and all but two have cho­sen even years, the default for coun­ties) but cities and towns do not.

Our leg­is­la­tion would give them the free­dom to choose.

By default, cities and towns’ elec­tions would stay in odd-num­bered years.

But they could choose to switch if they want­ed, to secure for their peo­ple the well-doc­u­ment­ed ben­e­fits of hold­ing elec­tions in pres­i­den­tial or midterm cycles when vot­er turnout is typ­i­cal­ly above six­ty or even sev­en­ty percent.

Local­i­ties across the coun­try vot­ed to do just that last year. In every sin­gle one of the juris­dic­tions where an even year elec­tions propo­si­tion was on the bal­lot in 2022, it passed eas­i­ly, includ­ing here in Wash­ing­ton State, where King Coun­ty vot­ers over­whelm­ing­ly backed an NPI pro­pos­al spon­sored by Coun­cilmem­ber Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci to switch the coun­ty’s elec­tions into even-num­bered years.

That mea­sure, King Coun­ty Char­ter Amend­ment 1, got a 69% yes vote.

Cities and towns now set to make the switch else­where in the coun­try include Boul­der, Col­orado, St. Peters­burg, Flori­da, and San Fran­cis­co, Cal­i­for­nia.

Those places are all part of a grow­ing pop­u­lar move­ment for even-year elec­tions that our research shows Wash­ing­to­ni­ans want to be a part of.

The case for even-year local elections is compelling

“Every pub­lished study on elec­tion tim­ing and vot­er turnout shows that com­bin­ing local elec­tions with state and fed­er­al elec­tions is the sin­gle most effec­tive change that local gov­ern­ments can make to increase turnout,” Zoltan L. Haj­nal, Vladimir Kogan, and G. Agustin Markar­i­an write in the Amer­i­can Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Review.

Imag­ine being able to as much as dou­ble the turnout for impor­tant local offices — and diver­si­fy it by an even greater mag­ni­tude — with just one struc­tur­al change. Well, that’s what even-year elec­tions for local gov­ern­ments can do for us.

Addi­tion­al­ly, even-year elec­tions help us address the prob­lem of elec­tion fatigue: vot­ers tired of elec­tions that are imme­di­ate­ly fol­lowed by more elec­tions. For exam­ple, here in Wash­ing­ton, it’s been less than two months since the 2022 midterms were cer­ti­fied, but already, for some, it’s time to vote again.

That’s right: the 2023 Feb­ru­ary spe­cial elec­tion is upon us! Seat­tle vot­ers are con­sid­er­ing Ini­tia­tive 135 (social hous­ing), for exam­ple, right now.

Elec­tion Day is next Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 14th.

That’ll be fol­lowed by an April 2023 spe­cial elec­tion in King Coun­ty and oth­er juris­dic­tions, then the August 2023 Top Two, then the Novem­ber 2023 gen­er­al, and so on. The lat­ter two win­dows are when cities and towns will hold their reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled elec­tions as state law present­ly requires.

If we take NPI’s home­town of Red­mond as an exam­ple, we can see from look­ing at vot­er turnout that there is a big dif­fer­ence between even and odd years.

Red­mond last elect­ed a may­or in 2019; it last held coun­cil elec­tions in 2021.

In each of those years, as well as in con­test­ed elec­tions going back even fur­ther, turnout has been well under fifty per­cent. A major­i­ty has­n’t returned bal­lots in Red­mond’s reg­u­lar­ly held elec­tions in over a decade.

Last year, by con­trast, Red­mond had a pub­lic safe­ty levy on the ballot.

This was a down­bal­lot item, just like may­or and coun­cil elec­tions, but because it appeared on the bal­lot in an even year, the turnout exceed­ed fifty percent.

In fact, Red­mond came close to two-thirds turnout. Far more Red­mon­ders vot­ed for and against this pub­lic safe­ty levy than vot­ed for may­or in 2019, or for coun­cil in 2021, thanks to the tim­ing cho­sen for the proposition.

We can run a seem­ing­ly end­less set of com­par­isons just like this for any num­ber of cities in Wash­ing­ton. Our friend Chris Roberts offered up a set back in 2020 right here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate. Again and again, the sto­ry is the same: more peo­ple vote on city-lev­el items if they are in an even-num­bered year.

Skep­tics of this reform keep non­sen­si­cal­ly argu­ing that mov­ing local elec­tions to even years will bury local issues, but the data shows that the oppo­site is true. More peo­ple pay atten­tion to and vote on issues and can­di­date elec­tions in their city when they are held in con­cert with state and fed­er­al elections.

Why? Because fed­er­al and state elec­tions are when the great­est num­ber of peo­ple are civi­cal­ly engaged. When local offices are made to stand on their own, they get less atten­tion. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true in the polit­i­cal era we are cur­rent­ly in… an era in which local news cov­er­age is alarm­ing­ly and pre­cip­i­tous­ly declining.

Our team has heard this our­selves. Staff and board­mem­bers out doing vol­un­teer can­vass­ing have been told flat-out at the doors: We don’t vote in off years.

There is no such thing as an “off” year, of course — every elec­tion matters.

Sad­ly, many peo­ple don’t share that belief. We need to meet peo­ple where they are rather than ignor­ing their wish­es for a sim­pler sys­tem of elections.

We can con­tin­ue to require cities and towns — arguably the most impor­tant unit of local gov­ern­ment that we have, aside from coun­ties — to hold their elec­tions at times when most peo­ple don’t vote, and when the elec­torate that is turn­ing out tends to be old­er, whiter, and rich­er. Or, we can chart a dif­fer­ent course by pass­ing Sen­ate Bill 5723. We can give Wash­ing­ton cities and towns the free­dom to choose a reform that evi­dence shows is wild­ly pop­u­lar with vot­ers all over.

Sen­ate Bill 5723 will have a pub­lic hear­ing this Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 10th at 8 AM in the Sen­ate State Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee. You can express your sup­port for the bill by sign­ing in PRO right now using this direct link. 

Our team hopes you’ll join us in sup­port­ing this thought­ful, nec­es­sary legislation.