Tucson can keep its election. Will it choose to change?

Now that Tucson has won the right — yet again — to continue holding its local elections in odd-numbered years, perhaps it’s time the city ditches the system.

That is, pivot to holding municipal elections in even-numbered years. Tucsonans would benefit from it.

The Old Pueblo’s victory came by way of an Arizona Supreme Court ruling issued last week.

The justices determined the Legislature intruded unconstitutionally into Tucson’s autonomy on local affairs with a state law it passed in 2018.

That law requires charter cities to align their local elections with state and national election dates if voter turnout in the most recent “off-cycle,” odd-numbered election year was lower by 25% or more than turnout in the previous gubernatorial election.

Tucson’s turnout in the 2019 election was about 28 percentage points lower than the 2018 gubernatorial election (39% vs. 67%).

The Supreme Court ruled that whether a charter city like Tucson holds off-cycle elections is “purely a matter of municipal interest and not a statewide concern.”

The state argued that a lower turnout affects the integrity and public trust of the election system ad thus constitutes a statewide interest.

The justices didn’t bite.

They pointed out that the state didn’t present evidence of, say, barriers to voting or unequal treatment of voters by holding elections in odd-numbered years.

To further their reasoning, the justices said low turnout alone does not cast doubt on fairness or integrity of an election. If anything, swings in turnout, they noted, are dependent on voter attention and voter interest. Even the weather.

All of which are germane and illuminating to the legal question.

A practical one remains: Should Tucson

switch its municipal elections to a state election date?

The city charter, since 1960, calls for off-cycle elections for electing city officials. The reasoning then is likely similar to one given today: Voters can focus more on local races, candidates don’t have to compete for money and attention with higher-profile state or national offices, the ballot isn’t nearly as dauntingly long.

None of them justifies settling for a significantly lower turnout.

Election-rules activists, particularly those from the left, advocate adoption of rules to expand voter access. No reforms come to mind that would increase voter participation in Tucson elections as much as abandoning the odd-numbered year elections and aligning them with state or national election dates.

That was certainly the case with Phoenix, which held its mayoral and city council elections in odd-numbered years until 2018. The city saw its turnout triple, from less than 21% in the August 2015 mayoral and (half of the eight) council district races to 77% in the November 2020 election for the same seats.

The city spent less, too, on ballots by piggybacking on state and federal races.

(Purists find fault with Phoenix’s system, too, because runoffs, including one in 2019 that installed Kate Gallego as mayor, continue to be held in odd-numbered years, when turnout is lower.)

Admittedly, Tucson placed a referendum on its 2018 ballot about switching its election cycle to even-numbered years and voters soundingly rejected it.

Some of that may have been due to the lack of publicity – the measure was referred to the ballot after the Legislature that spring passed the bill establishing the 25% lower turnout threshold to trigger an election-date change.

Some of it may have been a poke-inthe-eye to the Legislature, which has targeted changing Tucson’s elections a number of times over the past decade. It lost every time.

Last week’s victory cements Tucson’s autonomy to set its own election dates.

No longer forced to advance direct democracy, will the city do it on its own?