NPI urges Washington State House to advance legislation to move local elections to even years

Editor’s Note: The fol­low­ing are NPI founder Andrew Villeneuve’s pre­pared remarks in sup­port of House Bill 1932, leg­is­la­tion prime spon­sored by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mia Gregerson and cospon­sored by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Darya Fari­var that would empow­er local gov­ern­ments to move their elec­tions to even-num­bered years. HB 1932 was heard today by the House State Gov­ern­ment & Trib­al Rela­tions Com­mit­tee, chaired by State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bill Ramos. 

Chair Ramos, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cheney, and mem­bers of the com­mit­tee, good after­noon. For the record, I am Andrew Vil­leneuve from the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, here in strong sup­port of House Bill 1932.

I extend NPI’s most pro­found thanks to Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Gregerson and Fari­var for their work on this impor­tant and need­ed legislation.

Very sim­ply, the rea­son to do this is because the data over­whelm­ing­ly shows that when local elec­tions are moved to even-num­bered years, turnout goes way, way up — and it becomes more diverse. We’re just com­ing out of a local elec­tion year in which we had the worst vot­er turnout in Wash­ing­ton State his­to­ry. Only 36.41% of those eli­gi­ble to par­tic­i­pate returned a ballot.

House Bill 1932 is one of two pro­pos­als before this cur­rent Leg­is­la­ture that would update an old law dat­ing back to the 1960s which locks cities and towns in Wash­ing­ton into odd-num­bered years. The oth­er is Sen­ate Bill 5723, which is in the Rules Com­mit­tee on the oth­er side of the rotunda.

The main dif­fer­ences between the two are as follows.

First, Sen­ate Bill 5723 only per­tains to cities and towns, while House Bill 1932 also extends to oth­er lev­els of local gov­ern­ment, such as ports and school districts.

And sec­ond, as you heard Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gregerson say a few min­utes ago, House Bill 1932 has a manda­to­ry trig­ger, where­as Sen­ate Bill 5723 is entire­ly vol­un­tary — it’s 100% opt-in. It’s up to you as our elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives to decide which path you want to take — NPI is very sup­port­ive of both approaches.

I want to close by not­ing that this is some­thing vot­ers real­ly want.

Our polling has found a ratio to 2:1 sup­port and oppo­si­tion statewide in favor of even year elec­tions for local­i­ties. In King Coun­ty last cycle, vot­ers had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to change the coun­ty char­ter to move elec­tions to even-num­bered years — and over 69% vot­ed yes. King Coun­ty Char­ter Amend­ment 1 was one of thir­teen such pro­pos­als around the coun­try that all got approved.

From Flori­da to Cal­i­for­nia to Col­orado and here, every sin­gle bal­lot propo­si­tion to adopt even year elec­tions passed. Every one.

As the lead­ing nation­al experts on elec­tion tim­ing have not­ed, this is the only elec­toral reform avail­able to us that can as much as dou­ble turnout in local elec­tions while also great­ly diver­si­fy­ing it. Let’s lis­ten to the vot­ers — please give this bill a “do pass” rec­om­men­da­tion. Thank you!