San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones this week asked colleagues on City Council to consider permanently moving municipal elections from May to November, a move experts say could increase turnout while saving taxpayer money.
This past legislative session, the Texas legislature passed a bipartisan bill that allows municipal governments to shift elections to November. So far, several Texas cities have taken up the offer, including Dallas and the North Texas suburb of Mesquite.
“It is estimated, moving our May municipal election to November would save taxpayers approximately $1 million and increase overall voter turnout in those elections,” Jones wrote in a letter to the rest of council.
To bolster her argument, Jones provided commentary from Melissa Marschall, Rice University political scientist specializing in local elections, and Zoltan Hajnal, a quantitative social scientist at the University of California, San Diego.
“Turnout doubled there after Mesquite moved local elections from May to November,” Marschall and Hajnal wrote in their commentary. “Nationwide research also indicates that a move from May to November could double turnout, and numbers for Houston and the other Texas cities that hold November elections are in the same ballpark.”
Marschall and Hajnal also noted that moving municipal elections to November allows lower-income, working and middle-class voters a greater opportunity to participate in local politics. Research by the pair shows that higher turnout among elderly or well-off voters often skews May elections.
City Council has until Dec. 31 to move the date of municipal elections.
“If we as a council do not approve moving the election to November, we lose the opportunity to do so absent another change to the legislation, which is not a given in the foreseeable future,” Jones wrote.
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