We have an opportunity to make our elections healthier
by State Representative Will Mortenson, District 24
We have an opportunity to make our elections healthier.
South Dakota’s electoral process works pretty well. Our county auditors, who do the bulk of the ballot-preparing and the vote-counting, are a strong group. Many have decades of experience and I haven’t run across one that I wouldn’t trust with the code to my garage door. In short – diligent, honest folks run our elections and South Dakotans can have faith in them.
We can do better, though. This spring and summer saw dozens of elections on assorted dates throughout the calendar. In April, Fort Pierre held a municipal election. About a month later, I read about a school board election in Sioux Falls. Last week, Harrisburg held a bond election. This week, Pierre held a municipal and school board election and Rapid City held a school board election.
I subscribe to and read newspapers from Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and Pierre. I read blogs about government and follow most South Dakota media on Twitter. It’s fair to say I’m more interested than most in the workings of governments in our state. Even with that information, I had a hard time remembering when all these elections were taking place, let alone when the early voting window may have started.
The difficulty I experienced is borne out in voter turnout. South Dakotans are simply not showing up for these random-date elections. Fort Pierre turned out less than 25% of voters for the April election, despite a 79.25% turnout in the 2020 general election. In May, a mere 5% of Sioux Falls voters cast a ballot compared to almost 75% six months prior. On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, Harrisburg turned out 4.5% of the voters for its bond election, woefully short of the 79.5% that voted in November. Pierre and Rapid City showed the same trend, with 27% and 9.9% turnout, compared to 75.24% and 71.79%, respectively.
I know there are some good reasons why cities and school districts hold elections more frequently than every two years: some have odd-year terms, bonds elections have important timing considerations, and it can be complicated to administer four or five different types of elections all at once.
I’m not disputing these reasons, but our current process puts the strain and complication on the voter. We’ve made it difficult for South Dakotans to participate by holding elections on sporadic dates. 5% turnout is unacceptable when we know 70% of the same set of voters turned out in November.
We can do better. These elections should be held consistently and on a high-profile election day, so that the public has as much notice as possible. I look forward to working with cities, school districts, county auditors, the Secretary of State, and my colleagues on a practical plan to make these elections healthier.
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He’s right! These are important elections being decided by a small fraction of the voters.
Counter argument: the more ballot measures, candidates, etc. that you place at once, the chance of uninformed straight ticket votes are likely to occur. The way it stands now, the people voting are the ones actually invested in the issue. Not a great counter-argument, I admit, but I wonder if we should even care whether people know a thing about who/what they are voting for besides a letter next to their name.
I think, given the hard-left turn the Democrat party has taken in the past few years, the letter beside the name does actually say a lot.
As opposed to the conspiracy laden turn of the GOP? Look, I’m no fan of the democratic party apparatus, but I vote for candidates and not parties.
If Charles Manson were running for office and had a (D) beside his name, a certain percentage would vote for him.
Just because you claim to vote for the person (one cannot know every candidate well) doesn’t mean others don’t vote for D or R only.
…that’s my point. Thanks for getting it, I guess.
People should vote for the policies advocated by the candidate. Too many only vote for the person with no thought to his policies. I think that is what happened with Biden.
I don’t see how there can be a “straight ticket” when the city and school elections are non-partisan.
I also think this: True, it may be that the longer ballot means some voters don’t study the down-ticket races or vote on them. But currently, we have these elections where 90% of the voters don’t vote AT ALL.
Our November elections get 65% turnout, sometimes better. If only half of those voters made it down to the city and school elections, turnout for those would be 33%, which is a huge improvement over the current system.
This is a fair point. I recognize my argument isn’t a particularly strong one.
A reform whose time has come. The current gobbledygook of elections has the effect of suppressing votes, the vibrancy of our democracy and, ultimately, the performance of our governments at the local level
Will might not be able to remember when all the elections are throughout the state, he can’t vote in them all anyway, but in the local elections the vast majority know. Besides, with early voting a person who is interested in a certain ballot has plenty of time to learn the issue and then go and vote. If they are not interested or don’t know the issue, they won’t take the time to vote, and they probably shouldn’t be voting then anyway.
If possible, the local elections such as school board or bond issue or city races could be lumped together. But not by combining with statewide primary or general elections. Too far in between.
Also, in my opinion, votes are not being suppressed (a too often used cliche). Voters have plenty of time if they want to vote and nobody is telling them they can’t.
When your turnout is 5% or 10%, I don’t think it’s crazy to ask if there isn’t a better way.
Nice piece. Thank you. I’m going to chew on this for awhile.
More information needs to be provided about these elections. The average voter doesn’t know when their next local election is. Where can you go to see when the next school board or mayoral election in your town is? When are the terms of your current city commissioners up? As far as potential candidates how can you be a candidate if you don’t even know an election is coming up? Simple information will vastly improve these elections, even if they must be held at odd times.
Great article and I agree. It’s time to find a better way. Change the terms to align with current state elections. This isn’t hard.
Most of these election are aligned with the terms and fiscal years. School years begin and end in July so it made sense to have terms begin in July rather than have one board for half the year and possibly a new board half way through the year. This is why school elections are in the spring usually with city elections. With July terms and November elections you would need to take out petitions a year before term expirations and lave lame duck boards for 8 months every couple years.
I like the idea of having two election dates annually, one in June and one in July. That would give plenty of flexibility for school bond issues (2 options annually), and the spring dates would acommodate the city, county, and school board elections. An added benefit would be significantly higher voter participation (and who doesn’t want that). In this digital age, complexity of ballots and differing districts shouldn’t be a big burden to overcome. Great idea, Will!
correction on election dates: one in June and one in November…..