Anchorage Assembly to weigh ballot measure that would shift local elections from April to November

Three Anchorage Assembly members are introducing a proposal that could let voters decide if they want to change how local elections are run.

At the proposal’s core is shifting local elections for mayor, the Anchorage Assembly and School Board from April to November, when they’d be tacked on to biennial state and federal contests.

South Anchorage Assembly member Randy Sulte is leading the push for the proposal, along with members Scott Myers and Mark Littlefield, both of Eagle River. If passed by the Assembly, it would appear as a ballot proposition in the upcoming spring municipal election.

Under the proposal, local positions would be voted on every two years, instead of in annual elections. Accordingly, instead of local terms of office lasting three years as they do presently, they would extend to four years.

Sulte said the impetus for the proposal is to save the public money by running fewer elections and to boost civic engagement by capitalizing on the higher turnout rates seen in state and federal contests.

“I’m looking primarily at the money driver. Why wouldn’t we want it to cost less and increase turnout?” asked Sulte.

“The third piece is voter fatigue,” he said. “People just get voter fatigue.”

According to figures included with the ordinance, since Anchorage adopted its vote-by-mail system in 2018, turnout in municipal elections has averaged about 31%. Turnout in that period for state and federal races ranged from 40% to 61%, though that is statewide and not specific to how many Anchorage voters cast ballots.

During those same years, the average cost per municipal election was $682,640, with expenses tending to be higher in years with a mayor’s race on the ballot, because administrators usually have to organize a runoff election a month later between the top two candidates.

“Passage of this ordinance has the potential to reduce Municipal election cost by ~50% by adjusting to a two year cycle, aligned with State and Federal elections, resulting in an estimated savings of $341,319 per year or $1,365,279 over a four year period,” the ordinance states.

The measure states that rescheduling local elections to November “has the potential to increase Municipal voter turnout by ~24.19%.”

But the proposal is likely to receive opposition from members of the Assembly before it ever gets the chance to go on a ballot.

“It’s a perennial cause for certain factions in this community,” said Assembly Chair Chris Constant, who does not favor the measure.

In 2014, the Assembly actually did vote to change local elections to November. But well before the policy was set to go into effect, the body reversed course in 2015 and scrapped the switch, keeping the first Tuesday in April as local election day.

Constant said one big reason he isn’t in favor of the change is that it would make local candidates an afterthought, buried beneath splashier state and federal races. They would struggle to fundraise, to buy ad space, or to break through to residents who might already be sick of slick mailers and television commercials for higher-profile politicians.

“If candidates can’t raise money because it’s been choked up into these state races, these federal races … then it doesn’t matter if you raise a reasonable amount of money for a local candidate, you’re still not being heard,” Constant said.

He pointed to the tens of millions of dollars spent on Alaska’s lone congressional race this cycle. Local candidates and campaigns trying to get attention from residents, he said, would be dwarfed if they had to compete alongside those running for statewide and federal offices.

One part of Sulte’s proposal that Constant does like, though, is changing local terms in office from three years to four, and adjusting the election calendar so that voting happens biennially instead of annually.

“What would be beneficial about that is we’d have a year off every other year, and I love that idea,” Constant said.

Because the proposal would require a change to the municipal charter, it needs eight of the Assembly’s 12 members to vote in favor, which Constant said is a high bar to clear.

The ordinance will be formally introduced at Tuesday’s regular meeting, and is open for public testimony at the Dec. 17 meeting.

If the proposition does pass the Assembly and eventually get approved by voters, it will be complicated to implement, in large part because it will involve cohering distinct local and state statutes governing affected public offices. But Sulte thinks it would still be worth it.

“To me it’s common sense. I think the biggest pushback I’ll get is, ‘It’s gonna be hard,’” he said. “This could take five to six years to get done.”