Sarasota to Consider November Elections

Posted by Jacob Ogles on Monday Jun 1, 2015 4:29 pm

Sarasota Vice Mayor Suzanne Atwell asked staff to explore the possibility of holding city elections concurrent with November general elections. The city will bring information back at a later date, when the commission will decide details and consider placing the matter on a citywide ballot in November 2016.

"It's time to give Sarasota a place at the grown-up table," Atwell said, citing low citywide turnout of 18.7 percent in the recent Sarasota city election held May 12. In that contest, Sarasota City Commission races in District 2 and 3 drew resepctive turnouts of 27.72 percent and 16.78 percent, while two noncontroversial charter amendments drew a turnout of 6.31 percent in District 1.

City Attorney Robert Fournier said the matter would need to be put on a future agenda so that the public could speak to the issue. Research in the meantime will be done on such issues as how to schedule runoffs, how to phase in a change when sitting commissioners were sworn into terms on a May cycle, and when would be the most important time for voters to weigh in on the change.

City Commissioner Susan Chapman immediately noted that turnout in May seemed particualy low because voters in District 1 only had housekeeping amendments to draw them to the polls, and the 6.31 percent turnout there artificially lowered turnout citywide. She said a switch to November elections would be more complicated than it sounds. "Which election are candidates going to be narrowed down in? Is the first election in November, or is it in August, which has the lowest turnout of all?," she said.

Atwell said an August-November election cycle works for other nonpartisan offices such as School Board and Judge.

Filed under Politics

Tags:   featured  Sarasota City Elections  Suzanne Atwell

Comments (0 so far)

Tags