Takeaways
- Washington has moved the date of municipal elections five separate times since the state’s founding.
- While some of the reasoning for the changes has been lost to historical records, the legislature seemed to be circling around a common theme: finding the date that works best for voters.
- Since the last date change in 1963, the Secretary of State implemented statewide vote by mail, which neutralized the remaining barrier to further election consolidation: long ballots.
- A single election date in even-numbered years, combined with existing vote by mail in Washington, would address all the major goals of the state’s historical date changes and make voting even easier.
For the past 50 years, Washington has held municipal elections in November of odd-numbered years, separate from other federal, state, and county elections. Most voters are too young to remember when the state’s municipal elections happened on different dates, but the timing of elections has never been set in stone. Now, given the changes to voting that the state has enacted since the last date change—namely, mail-in voting—it may be time for another update to when Washington holds Election Day. Legislators could follow through on the goals of their predecessors, to say nothing of the overwhelming preference of voters, and continue to make voting easier by moving municipal elections to even-numbered years.
Early date changes consolidated most elections
Washington has never held national and municipal elections on the same day. When the state was founded in 1889, municipal elections were held annually on the first Tuesday in December. Then, the state legislature changed the timing of elections five times in the first half of the 20th century:
- 1907: Elections moved to the first Tuesday in April.
- 1921: The date moved to the first Tuesday in May. The wording of the law specified that elections were held “in the year in which they may be called.” This phrasing suggests that elections could be held in either odd- or even-numbered years, based on the politicians’ terms of office.
- 1923: The state moved elections to the second Tuesday in March.
- 1955: Elections were set for March of even-numbered years so that they happened in the same year as federal, state, and county elections, but in a different month.
- 1963: The election date for the largest cities changed to the first Tuesday in November of odd-numbered years. The law did not take effect until 1967. After an Executive Session in 1975–76, this change applied to all cities and towns in the state.
Five date changes in less than 100 years is a lot; state lawmakers certainly have not always aligned on the best time to hold elections. And many of the updates have complicated caveats—some of these date changes only affected the larger “Class A” and “Class AA” counties, for example. The change in 1955 did not apply if it conflicted with a city’s charter.1 So, large cities with a charter provision that required elections in an odd-numbered year on a date other than the first Tuesday in November were allowed to keep that date; other large cities moved their elections to the first Tuesday in November of odd numbered years; and smaller cities still held their elections in March of either even- or odd-numbered years.
In those early years, lawmakers seem to have been trying to figure out the best timing for local elections. What were they aiming for?
The reasoning behind the change in 1963
Alas, historical records don’t include the reasoning behind most of the earlier changes. But the Office of the Secretary of State wrote an Explanatory Comment for the 1963 change, which suggests that the Secretary is focused on making voting easier for voters.
The first reason the office offered for moving elections to November of odd-numbered years was to “re-unite the holding of city elections with school districts elections.” 2 In addition, the explanatory comment said the change “would establish September and November of each year as a consistent time for holding of elections. It would make sense to the voters, and the cities, towns, and districts concerned would be able to share the costs of elections.” The Secretary likely noticed that the convoluted timing across different cities was not easy for voters or election administrators.
Thanks to Ned & Mary Knight for supporting a sustainable Cascadia.
Our work is made possible by the generosity of people like you.
The 1963 bill also moved port elections in King and Pierce counties from November of even-numbered years to odd-numbered years. The Explanatory Comment says that the goal of that shift was to reduce the “overcrowding of state election ballots.”
To summarize, the four reasons the Secretary State provided for the timing change in 1963 were to 1) reunite city and school district elections, 2) find a consistent voting pattern that made sense to voters, 3) share the cost of elections across jurisdictions, and 4) reduce the overcrowding of state election ballots. Let’s examine each of those in turn.
1. To reunite city and school district elections
The first reason given, reuniting city and school district elections, is puzzling: those elections were never held on separate dates. Through all the changes (1907, 1921, 1923, 1955), elections within a given city or town were the same for all “city, town, school district, park district, river improvement district, commercial waterway district, water district, fire district, hospital district, ferry district, sewer district and all other municipal and district elections,” as noted by the 1921 law.
The changes to election dates between 1921 and 1963 only affected cities in the more populous counties, those classified as class A and class AA, and not even all of them. Thus, smaller counties were voting in May, and larger ones had their dates changing. Under all those adjustments, however, municipal and school district elections were always on the same date.
The Secretary of State’s reasoning here, then, is spurious. But it might be taken as a reinforcement that the office thought consolidating elections is better for voters.
2. To establish consistency for voters
The second goal of changing timing, as stated in the 1963 comment, was to find a pattern of election dates that would make sense to the voters. The change meant that there was one date in September of each year for primary elections and one date in November of each year for general elections, as opposed to the prior format where different towns and cities held their elections in different months and in both odd and even numbered years.
With the 1963 shift, the then-Secretary of State acknowledged that holding elections on a more consistent timeline would make more sense to voters.
3. To spread election costs across jurisdictions involved
Third: cost-sharing. While the cost of holding elections is not a substantial part of either county or municipal budgets, cost-sharing across jurisdictions can decrease some of the fixed costs, such as paying poll workers and advertising the election date. Additional consolidation and cost-sharing of elections could further increase these savings.
Prior Sightline analysis estimates that Washington could save $20.6 million by moving local elections to the federal election day.
4. To prevent overcrowded ballots and “choice fatigue” for voters
What about the 1963 Secretary of State’s fourth argument, that ballots might become overcrowded? Participating in a democracy requires a lot of decision-making, and “choice fatigue,” where voters either skip later issues or vote arbitrarily when ballots get too long, does exist.
Elections fatigue, however—holding too many elections—is a much larger problem: far fewer people fill out a ballot at all in odd-numbered years than drop off due to long ballots in even-numbered years. And academic research indicates that voters have enough information to make representative choices, even with long ballots.
Bonus factor: Vote by mail
In addition, Washington State switched to voting by mail in 2011. The Secretary of State, Sam Reed, wrote at the time, “Vote-by-mail has been very successful in Washington […] It is less expensive, and I believe it boosts voter participation. Even before counties started switching, many voters themselves decided that this is the way they prefer to vote, over a period of several weeks, in the privacy and convenience of their own homes.” A study from 2017 shows that mail voting in Washington reduces the “roll-off” caused by choice fatigue by about 15 percent.
Evidence shows, then, that overcrowded ballots are no longer a major concern.
One more step forward
State legislators can now further advance these historic goals of making voting easier with one more timing change: moving municipal elections to even-numbered years rather than odd-numbered years. This update would further unite election timing, allow for additional cost-sharing, and, combined with mail-in voting, would still allow voters ample time to research and consider their selections.
Since its creation, Washington State has changed the timing of municipal elections five times. But Washingtonians are still voting separately for local offices, and the state has markedly less participation in local elections than in statewide and federal elections.
It’s been more than 50 years since Washington changed the date for municipal elections—it’s past time for an update.
