If you live in a city, your local elections are sensibly on Election Day in November. If you live in a town, your local elections are on a random day in the spring, typically before Town Meeting begins.
Here’s what the election/voting lineup might look like this year for a Democrat living in a Mass. town:
Caucus sometime in the winter
March Presidential primary
Possible preliminary election in the spring
Local election in the spring
Town Meeting, which could go on for days (or I should say evenings)
September primary
November election
And that’s without any special Town Meetings or Prop 2 1/2 overrides. Wonder why local election turnout is fairly dismal in many towns? Argue all you want about how it doesn’t take that long and that it’s a small price to pay for democracy, but a lot of people are busy and time-strapped and just don’t want to make the effort for an uninteresting race or uninspiring candidates.
Why are we incurring the extra expense of one or two additional elections for no apparent reason? What is the purpose of asking town residents to go to the polls one or two extra times? This doesn’t make it any easier for the politically active among us to encourage our less-interested acquaintances to vote. How many times each year can I get away with suggesting people go to the polls to support a candidate when they’re working 50+ hours a week and also have family responsibilities and chores to do?
Why can’t local elections be on election day across the Commonwealth, not just in cities?
Very simple. Under the town form of government, the annual town election is actually Article 1 of the Annual Town Meeting. The town needs to elect its officers as part of this process, in addition to electing Town Meeting Members in large towns using a Representative Town Meeting form of government.
Towns do not hold elections in November on odd-number years, so you really only get one “extra” election every two years. Small price to pay to have a working, responsive local democracy.
We elect officers in May by ballot; our town meetings are in June and November.
Just because the annual town election is tied to Town Meeting, doesn’t mean it has to be on the same day. Chapter 41, Section 1 of the MGL prescribes the standard method of selecting the Officers of the Town by ballot as a part of the annual Town Meeting. Officers vary based on the town charter, but the principle and general form remains the same if you are Gosnold or Framingham.
My town has made several such other provisions, both in terms of date and officers elected. We also don’t elect most of the officers the Section suggests we should. The election is not the first article on any warrant even symbolically or nominally. I became rather versed in this when I ran for Moderator last year.
Most towns are organized under a charter that overrides the state’s default (Chapter 41, Section 1, MGL) However, the Arlington Town Warrant for 2012 lists ARTICLE 1, TO BE ELECTED BY BALLOT (page 2) followed by the articles for the Annual Town Meeting – which begins with Article 2 (page 3). We had a special town meeting within the annual (page 17) which begins with Article 1.
is that Town elections are held directly following the publication of the warrant for Town Meeting, which describes all of the issues that will be before Town Meeting that year.
Holding the elections at that time thus allows voters to elect on the basis of the issues that are before the Town.
Here’s why none of that matters.
First of all, except for the year following redistricting no more than a third of a Representative Town Meeting (RTM) is up for election in any year.
Second of all, the warrant in practice plays little role in Town elections. It is usually ignored until Town Meeting actually starts voting (if then. Ask Pablo about the leaf blowers this year).
Thirdly, the warrant is similarly irrelevant, in practice, to other Town officers such as selectmen and assessor (where elected).
I have served in two RTMS and grew up in a third RTM town. Here in Massachusetts, Proposition 2-1/2 has taken the most contentious issue out of the hands of Town Meeting. Seats are generally lightly contested at best.
I’d like to restate Oceandream’s question. Who would be empowered by holding Town elections on election day? What would the effect be? Who would benefit, and who would lose?
There is typically a very small turnout for local elections, at least in my town, perhaps because so few offices are contested anymore. It’s a lot easier and less expensive to run for local office when you’re expecting a 10% turnout than a 50% turnout. Holding local elections on election day would make a lot more work for local candidates in a contested race. IMO it would also make the results a lot more meaningful.