urbanMSP

[Mod note: Snipped topic from "Suburban City Council Shenanigans"]

Kudos to New Brighton for making the move to even-year elections (assuming I read the article correctly). It sounds like they lengthened the mayor's current term by one year and shortened the council members' terms by one year to make the switch work.

Even year elections for all! Boo to odd year elections!

Agreed with the ending odd year elections!

Disagree. Municipal elections totally get buried when they're competing with state and federal races. The issues are too important to get lost in the shuffle.

Honestly it's not really cut and dry in either direction. In even years you get higher turnout, but because local issues get drowned out by state and national races, you're going to on average have a less informed electorate.

In odd years theirs not as much noise so you can be better informed, but turnout is lower.

The first is clearly more democratic, but there's got to be something that can be done about local issues getting lost in the noise.

[Just to be clear, I'd move Mpls & St. Paul muni elections to the "non-Presidential" even-numbered years, synced up with the Gubernatorial elections in MN.]

"Lost in the shuffle" must be weighed against "turnout". I know which I put more value in.

After giving a little more thought, I still don't buy the whole "lost in the shuffle" argument. In 2014, for example, we had the incumbent DFL governor and US Senator to re-elect, along with the 3 statewide office holders (SoS, AG, Auditor). Our congresspeople (Keith & Betty) have safe seats for life, should they want them. I disagree that the residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul would have been unable to pay attention to simultaneous municipal races. Throwing an open governor or US Senator seat into the mix probably doesn't change that feeling by much.

The low turnout in odd-year municipal elections cannot be ignored. Mpls barely cracked 33% turnout in a year with a hotly contested mayoral election and a bunch of open seats. Turnout was a paltry 20% in 2009 when Rybak was uncontested.

2013 turnout in Minneapolis: http://vote.minneapolismn.gov/www/group ... 126706.pdf
2014 turnout in Minneapolis: http://vote.minneapolismn.gov/www/group ... 134510.pdf

In many wards, 2014 turnout was nearly double that of 2013. And that's with 2014 being a lower turnout year statewide vs. 2013 being "above average" compared to other recent municipal elections. I simply cannot agree that 2013's turnout is preferential to 2014.

[Hyperbolic statement warning] Fuck the issues. I'll take double the number of people voting, every time.

2016 turnout in Minneapolis: http://vote.minneapolismn.gov/www/group ... 194756.pdf

Only one precinct with less than 60% and more than half with over 75%.

Wait, is that a voter turnout map or a wealth distribution map?

Yes.