Election years debated

If approved, even-year voting may start in 2026

Boulder is poised to ask voters whether they’re interested in moving City Council elections to even years.

While the idea would need to be officially OK’D for the November ballot by the Council, a majority supported the concept in a meeting Tuesday.

For those in favor, it’s simple. “At the heart, it’s lifting up those that are disenfranchised and don’t vote in odd years,” Councilmember Matt Benjamin said. “These are renters, younger voters, people of color, lower-income individuals and families in our community.”

According to the National Civic League, most cities set their election dates in odd-numbered off-cycle years, with the idea that voters would be able to focus more effectively on municipal-level issues without the distraction of major state and federal elections

That’s the explanation some Boulder City Council members gave when opposing the proposition.

“The concern is that the City Council campaigns and the City Council elections will get swamped by the state and federal elections happening in years that are divisible by two and by four,” Councilmember Bob Yates said.

But the League noted that election timing is the No. 1 predictor of voter turnout.

“Voters are much more likely to turn out for consolidated, evenyear elections where they are motivated by highly visible federal and state contests but also continue to vote in down-ballot local races,” it wrote.

For example, when Baltimore shifted to on-cycle local elections in 2016, voter turnout jumped from 13% to 60%.

“When you make structural changes to make voting accessible to more people, you get that more representative electorate,” Mayor Aaron Brockett said.

While the idea was supported by the Council majority, Yates was joined in opposition by Councilmember Mark Wallach, who argued the proposal is “not ready for prime time.”

“We’ve done no community outreach. We’ve done no polling. We have no idea whether this is something that’s desired by the community at large,” he said.

Councilmember Tara Winer said she remains on the fence.

“I’m very torn on this because I do want to get as many people to the ballot box as possible,” she said. “On the other hand … there is no way that local issues are going to take precedence over what’s happening right now nationally.”

Either way, if voters do support moving to evenyear elections, there are some challenges in terms of implementation as well as some parameters that officials must work within, according to the city.

For example, terms for existing or future seats would need to be shortened or lengthened by a year in order to accommodate the new schedule.

Furthermore, the Boulder County Clerk does not want to change to even-year elections in 2024 or 2028, since those are presidential election years, so the goal would be to get to even-year elections by 2026, Senior Assistant Attorney Kathy Haddock noted.

The Council went back and forth on how it might want to proceed procedurally and ultimately decided it would need to learn more and consult with the county clerk.

In terms of the internal city effort, Haddock said the shift to even-year elections shouldn’t be a huge effort.

“We do elections every year as a practical matter as staff so whether candidates are included in this year or that year is not a big deal as far as for the work we need to do,” Haddock said. “It’s a different question with respect to budget and how much it’s going to cost to be part of an even-year election with a much longer ballot than a shorter ballot.”

City Clerk Elesha Johnson confirmed that the cost would be her primary concern. For example, the estimated initial cost to implement ranked choice voting, since Boulder is currently the sole municipality doing so, is around $250,000, Johnson said.

Boulder voters in 2020 agreed to elect their mayor by ranked choice voting starting in 2023. Initiating this first will help alleviate some of the burden, Johnson noted.

But it’s still hard to know all the impacts.

“We won’t know until we know,” Johnson said.

Other ballot measures

Although nothing is official until the petitions have been filed and the City Council approves the measures for the ballot later this year, a number of other issues are expected to be seen on the municipal ballot.

Voters are likely to be asked whether to replace Boulder’s utility occupation tax and revoke its existing climate action plan tax and instead implement a new $5 million climate tax with bonding authority.

Additionally, voters could choose to change the swearing-in of newly elected councilmembers from the third Tuesday in November to the first business meeting in December.

The Boulder Library Champions are continuing to gather signatures for a measure that could form a property tax-funded library district in Boulder and parts of unincorporated Boulder County. The group began this effort after the city and county could not reach an agreement on the terms of a library district.

If voters approve this, they also would be asked to repeal several city charter provisions related to the library, including the 0.333mill property tax dedicated for it.

Finally, a referendum that could overturn the annexation agreement for the CU South property will be on the ballot regardless of what the City Council does. Organizations such as Save South Boulder and PLANBoulder County have kicked off a campaign in support.