Even-year elections will increase representation

By Juan Marcano, published in the Daily Camera:

The rent is too damn high. Homeownership is a distant dream for most working-class people. Wages aren’t keeping up with the soaring cost of living. The number of people experiencing homelessness is on the rise. Car-centric planning and the associated maintenance costs are squeezing local budgets. Evidence-based public safety policy is being shelved in exchange for wasteful and ineffective “tough on crime” policy. The extractive industry is polluting our air and making our communities sick.

With so much at stake in Colorado’s cities, you may be surprised to learn that municipal elections experience much lower participation than state and federal elections. There are several factors that contribute to this troubling turnout trend, but the primary culprit is the timing of these elections.

With few exceptions, local elections in Colorado take place in November of odd-numbered years. State-wide, only 36% of voters turned out in November of 2019, a figure which is simultaneously embarrassingly low and a high-water mark for off-year participation in our state. For comparison, 85% of registered voters in Colorado participated in the 2020 general election.

Boulder is no exception to this trend. Fifty-one percent of Boulderites returned a ballot in November of 2019, while 90% of Boulderites voted in November of 2020. While above-average participation is commendable, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

More important than the drops in participation are the differences in outcomes between even-year and odd-year election cycles. When voter participation drops, elections become less representative of the population and often skew in a way that is inconsistent with the values and priorities communities mandate during even-year elections. Analysis of off-year voter participation demonstrates clear underrepresentation of people with lower socioeconomic standing and from those with more diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, resulting in the priorities of these communities largely going unheard and unaddressed.
In a representative democracy, we should be striving to do everything we can to make it as easy as possible for all members of our society to participate in our elections and ensure those outcomes reflect the will of the majority of residents. Luckily, two other cities in Colorado have already shown us a great way to accomplish that goal.

Castle Rock and Parker, unlike the state at large, had municipal turnout between 87-91% in November of 2020. Not only are Parker and Castle Rock’s election outcomes representative of the majority of their communities, but the high level of participation in these races debunks the most common argument against combining moving elections to even years.

Municipal races did not get overshadowed by county, state and federal elections.

On the contrary, candidates for all levels of government had an opportunity to campaign together and demonstrate to the electorate how they would work with their counterparts to address the challenges in their community. Intergovernmental collaboration is critical to addressing many local issues and by moving municipal races to even years this important dynamic is elevated and made an integral part of each election cycle.

From animal control to zoning, the decisions made at city hall impact our daily lives far more than what happens under the golden dome or in the halls of Congress. In an era where cynical opportunists are undermining trust in elections and attacking the very concept of democracy itself, Boulder has an opportunity to lead Colorado by becoming the largest city to strengthen its local democracy and ensure its governing body is as representative as possible by moving its municipal elections to even-years.

Please vote “yes” on Measure 2E this fall.

Juan Marcano is a member of Aurora City Council. He is a staunch advocate for electoral reforms that improve democratic participation and has introduced a charter amendment for the City of Aurora to move elections to even years beginning in 2026.