Hot off the press, the City of Sioux Falls is requesting that the April municipal election be pushed back until June because of concerns about the coronavirus:
As noted by City Councilor Christine Erickson on the Sioux Falls Politics facebook page:
As we navigate through this very fluid situation we feel it’s most responsible to request to delay the election to June 2 primary date. This is NOT decided yet and we are working with both offices to get solid direction within the next couple of days.
Is this going to set the stage for all April Municipal elections in the state?
No one votes in minimal elections already….. what’s the difference??
Maybe they should just permanently move city/school board elections to line up with the June primary? Then more people would vote that way.?
That is a great idea!
I agree with Matt and Dave. We might as well make this change now. Public participation is vital to democratic government (duh), but we’ll be more productive & prosperous if we spend less time voting and more time working, creating, healing, building, and pursuing happiness. The city and state benefit when political and civic duties disrupt residents’ lives less often. Let’s concentrate voting (same number of races — just fewer election days) so that citizens can vote efficiently.
I agree.
Gee, I wonder what city councilor has been asking for this for several weeks? Hypocrites!
Not understanding the name calling. Frankly, Stehly has burned every bridge in this state. She can’t get anything done.
SF Voter has a point. If you dislike Stehley, thats fine but,a broken clock is right twice a day. Paulson and his group of fake Christians are lining up behind Jensen so the can have another vote to fleece the taxpayer more. I truly dislike Stehley’s approach and she has been a complete dumpster fire in her ability to self destruct but, her voting record shows me she is for the average citizen. I will be holding my nose when I vote for her but, the hypocrisy of many of my fellow Conservatives on this blog in relation to her is astounding.
She just has to buy some stuff from Dakota Campaign Store and all the bad coverage here will go away
I feel Barnett should extend petition deadline.
Some interesting challenges and ideas here.
How long of a veto Day, with a few hundred from across the state gathered in one building? If the policy issues get more numerous or complex, you can’t exclude the public from participating and lobbying their legislators. So you want to limit the scope of this day to the essential issues.
Permanently moving local elections to primary day is a great idea, that doesn’t need to be done on veto Day.
Local elections have a notoriously low turnout, the virus isn’t causing that, but it will of course hurt it. Sec Barnett has a tough call. If he moves it from these earlier stages, is he going to be moving it to a time when people will be less willing to go out due to there being more cases (inevitable). He has to weigh that against how to get poll workers. No easy call there.
In later june we could do a special session and have better information on the viruses impact, and more time to develop a solid response. Doesn’t answer local election issue, but that’s only a small part of what needs to be dealt with.
Extend petition deadline? People had from January until the end of March. Unlike the Election Day question, this isn’t about lack of opportunity, it’s about people not taking responsibility and getting their work done.
Appreciate the insightful comments. It’ll take the serious thought of many to work through this.
Elections should take place as normal. It will impact turnout, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Postponing elections is a bad precedence to set.
And doing it anyway sets the “precedence” of having the only people voting are those who are willing to risk a possibly lethal disease that is already spreading like wildfire.
The stability of the election process is far more important than the number of prior who vote in a given election cycle.
I wonder about the stability of the economy as you massively increase the risk of transmission of the disease. I wonder about the stability of the democratic process itself when only those who are healthy get to vote.
Why not use this as an opportunity to streamline the election process. I never could understand why all the contests weren’t on the same day…primary, school, county. Doing something just because it has always been done that way is foolish.
It’s a way to suppress voting in my opinion and logically its just inefficient and stupid. Common sense says if you have elections for various levels of government at the same time, more people turn out, it costs less, and you get a better sampling. If we would do that I bet these school bond votes would not be passing and putting us in debt up to our eyeballs but, I digress
The school board does this for an obvious reason. Not sure why the city does this.
They both should at the bare minimum be on the same day but should be moved to the fall with the others.