City elections in Sarasota may be moved to November of even-numbered years, and perhaps turned to winner-takes-all affairs, but not before a divided Sarasota City Commission can navigate the process for change, and not before voters weigh in on the decision themselves.

Sarasota City Attorney Robert Fournier over the next few months will draft ordinances that would amend the city charter and reschedule city elections from the spring in odd-numbered years to the fall in even-numbered years. Commissioners still need to finalize matters like the phasing of commission terms and whether there will still be a runoff, but voted 3-2 to move ahead with drafting a referendum to put on the ballot. “Now is the time,” said Vice Mayor Suzanne Atwell. “I have never heard so many people who want to change the election as I have heard in the last year.”

The chief argument revolved around turnout. In the May city election, turnout citywide was just 18.63 percent, with a 27.72 percent turnout in high-turnout District 2. Comparatively, the November elections in Sarasota County had a turnout of 58.93 percent. Kevin Cooper, vice president for the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, noted that a city charter amendment on derivatives prohibition incited 19,622 to vote on a November 2012 ballot, while just 11,044 votes were cast in a highly contested City Commission race the following March (of note, just 6,153 votes were cast in the March election, with voters allowed to vote for two candidates). 

Commissioner Susan Chapman, though, criticized the push, and said moving the election is a change of such magnitude it ought to originate from a citizen petition or a formal charter review process. She noted that an August-November election cycle would not necessarily cure turnout problems, pointing out primaries have low turnout as well. The August primary, for example, had a 21.32 percent turnout countywide, and that turnout saw a higher concentration of Republican voters, who had more to vote on than either Democrats or independent voters. Chapman did suggest a possible remedy for that, though, asking if the city could move to winner-takes-all elections and hold a contest in November with no runoff.

Fournier said such a move would require another change in the charter, one reversing a previous citizen-approved referendum that requires a majority vote to elect commissioners. He will move forward with drafting two ordinances, one that would have a single November election without a runoff, and another that would call for August-November election cycles. He did say commissioners would need to choose one approach or the other to put in front of voters. He plans to bring back the ordinances in the fall, at which point commissioners would also need to set up a plan for staggering terms to run through new election dates.