Odds or evens? Boulder voters will decide which years are best for City Council elections.

By Sara Wilson, published in Colorado Newsline:

For Council member Matt Benjamin, his support for the potential shift “comes down to empowering more people to participate in local elections.”

“We are seeing active and deliberate efforts to make it harder and to fundamentally limit who has access and how difficult it is for people to vote. It is the power play in politics right now,” he said. “And for a city like Boulder that prides itself in its liberal values, it is almost obvious that we would be a bastion of creating an electoral environment where the maximum amount of people are participating.”

Supporters of the measure point to the often dramatic increases in voter turnout from odd-year elections — which see municipal and school board elections — and even-year elections that have broader interest because of statewide and federal elections.