by David Ball
Staff Writer
Jacksonville City Council Member Ray Holt hosted a meeting Tuesday to discuss a referendum to move city elections to the fall, and the mostly positive response was immediately shared with Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland.
“The meeting went well,” Holt phoned Holland, who was overseeing the elections in Atlantic Beach. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
Holland said the news was good to hear, as he has advocated moving the spring 2011 elections to coincide with state and federal races in the fall of 2012, which would extend the terms of current council members, the mayor and constitutional officers 18 months.
Although similar measures have been defeated by the council in the past, Holland said he’s optimistic it could move forward with the current City Council.
“I’m glad to see them taking that interest,” said Holland of the Tuesday meeting. “There’s no doubt that this is probably the best chance there’s been to pass it, knowing our dollars are so tight.”
Holland said it could save the city approximately $2.84 million to stop holding a standalone city election every four years and instead add the local races to the ballots already occurring (and paid for) in the fall.
Holt cited those savings Tuesday as he looked for co-sponsors to a bill to initiate a public referendum to amend the charter. The referendum would require a simple majority vote to be enacted.
Holt said the move should also help increase voter turnout, which during the last elections this spring was low at 19 percent for the primary and 9 percent for the general.
“By syncing it with the presidential, you will ensure a major turnout,” said Holt.
However, City Chief of Research Jeff Clements said historically, election turnouts in Jacksonville have been linked to close mayoral races.
“In blowout races or unopposed races, the turnout is very low,” said Clements, who added that hotly contested races have drawn 45 to 50 percent turnouts.
Although not garnering a majority council consensus, Holt did get some positive feedback from attending council members Don Redman, Warren Jones, Stephen Joost and Bill Bishop.
Jones offered the obvious criticism that some voters might miss local races bogged down by heavy state and federal ballots.
“The longer the ballot, the larger the drop off,” he said. “A lot of people will go on election day and vote for the president...and vote for the mayor and go home.”
Bishop responded, “But are those the ones that are going to show up in the spring anyway?”
The group also discussed problems with some local candidates raising campaign funds and buying media advertisements when competing with presidential and gubernatorial candidates, although that was mostly quashed as a viable criticism.
“That’s our problem,” Bishop said. “That’s a candidate problem, not a voter problem.”
Clements listed about a half-dozen bills since 2000 either withdrawn or voted down by the city council to move the elections.
Holt said he didn’t want this bill to fail as a recent one did with a 10-9 vote.
“It’s worth putting it out to the voters to decide,” said Holt. “To vote against it would take that choice away.”