The Falls Church Insider All About the City of Falls Church, Virginia, For & By The Folks Who Live & Work There

As I mentioned the other day the City Council is considering an ordinance that would move the City elections from May to November.  It seems like the main reason to make this change is because more people would vote.  Many more people in the City vote in November elections than in May elections.  Most people naturally say that having more people vote in an election is better than having fewer people vote - and that’s probably true most of the time.  I don’t think it’s true in this situation.

When considering this issue the first thing I pondered was - why don’t more people vote in May?  I haven’t done any research but these are the reasons I came up with:

1. No decisions to make - apparently there haven’t been that many candidates on the ballots in recent years.  If there are generally 5 people running for 4 slots or 4 people running for 4 slots then people might not feel compelled to come out and vote.
2. People don’t know about the election - this one I find hard to believe.  I haven’t lived in the City during a May election but I’m guessing the Falls Church News Press and various online forums cover it heavily.  Maybe there are flyers, signs, and some banners up around town?
3. People don’t care - don’t take this the wrong way!  I think in a place like Falls Church a lot of the residents are very educated and knowledgeable about government.  The strong voter turnout in November (the City regularly ranks very high in overall voter participation rates for November elections) indicates that people care about national and state politics.  I just think many people don’t pay too much attention to the local stuff.  I never really did when I was living in Fairfax County.  Now, I personally pay more attention to the local stuff than the national stuff - but I’m not saying the other approach is bad, just different.
4. People are lazy - I don’t think this one is true either.  I don’t think that the effort of going to the polls one extra day every other year is keeping people from voting.  I really, really hope that’s not what’s going on.
5. People feel uninformed - again, I’m not really buying this one.  I don’t think it would be hard for people to become informed about the candidates and issues so if people aren’t voting because they don’t think they know enough to vote… well see #3 above.

Okay, but what would happen if the election was moved from May to November?  We know a lot more people would be going through the voting booths.  How many of those people would even realize that there was a local election (see #2 above)?  They would get into the booth and see a slate of people to choose for City Council and School Board and at that point would obviously realize that it’s also a local election - but how would they choose who to vote for?

I think some of our educated voters would actually skip the local section, realizing that they didn’t have the info needed to make an informed decision.  Many would probably go ahead and pick some names.  Some of those folks would pick names that they have heard before (incumbents, people with a lot of yard signs, etc.).  Others might use even less logical methods (randomly, in the order they appear on the ballot, people with names they like, etc.).  It seems possible to me that in a November election you could actually have more votes cast by people randomly then the total number of votes you get in May.  This suggest that the candidates could be elected at random.

I’m pretty confident that the people who vote in May are at least familiar with the local issues (otherwise, why would they vote?).  Because there are fewer voters in May it seems like the election could be susceptible to small groups of people banding together to vote in their preferred candidates.  But isn’t that the point?  Isn’t it better to have a small group of informed voters select our City Council and School Board rather than a larger number of uninformed (or at least under-informed) voters randomly selecting people?

I’ve suggested this scenario before and people have accused me of not giving our voters enough credit - that they would learn about the candidates and issues ahead of time and make informed votes.  If that’s the case, then why aren’t these people voting in May?

I don’t know, maybe it’s embarrassing that we have such low voter turnout in May?  Maybe we just look better if more votes are cast - whether or not those votes lead to electing the best candidates.  Personally, I’d rather have a small number of people who know and care about the City vote and select our leaders.