@charlierybak I love it. More will vote.

@natepentz I am almost always in favor of getting everyone to vote, but in this case, I fear more will vote, fewer will pay attention. I don't think that's a good tradeoff. And I think it will lead to toxic, nationalized dynamics in local races when really it should be people's sole focus.

@charlierybak Hard to know. Is there another city that did this so we can view the data.

@meridianchaos These cities are probably a good place to start:

@charlierybak Asking a question no one else apparently thinks to ask in this area: What does St. Paul do? I can say as someone involved in local politics (not as much as others by any means), it's exhausting to have an election every year. 7 out of the last 8. Why would voters want that?

@Jake_BrewHoop They're currently on the same schedule as Minneapolis, which seems to work great. I agree, I am exhausted by all of it. Having the double dose of council races has made it worse. But I'm not sure running these concurrent to, say, a Trump - Biden race will be less exhausting.

@charlierybak The city elections will get far greater voter turnout. I thought Democrats were in favor of increasing voter turnout?

@jimbo831 I like higher turnout! it is not the only factor here, imo.

@charlierybak There are so many electeds in city offices; Mayor, City council (13), Parkboard (9), School board (9), and Board of Estimate (2). Voters would have about (up to 11) more offices to vote for. The bottom of the ballot does not get a lot of voters attention during the 2 year cycle.

@charlierybak I'd rather keep nonpartisan and partisan elections separate, but partisans can't stay away from trying to rig local elections anyway through arcane caucus/endorsment processes, etc. Given that, can't convince myself it wouldn't be better to pick a date with vastly higher turnout.

@charlierybak I agree, reason why I never sign the petition that people ask me to do in front of DFL local conventions.

@charlierybak The number of people who have no idea an election is even happening during the off years is huge. Maybe combining to a time when people are paying attention generally would help? Hard to ignore those turnout stats.

@charlierybak The difference in turnout is so large, are you sure that even the 2% attention paid by that large of a block of people doesn’t dwarf the realistic gains in attention possible from the odd year crowd? I get nervous about this argument because it always seems to drift…

@charlierybak Consolidated elections probably boost turnout, but you're not wrong about national politics drowning out local issues.

@charlierybak Wrong. We should hold elections when people actually turn out. I would that argue Minneapolis city government isn’t even legitimate with these numbers.

@charlierybak @shannonkwatson Strong disagree. Odd year elections have the voting base about as representative of the Star Tribune comments section and poor turnout to match. It is also very expensive for election offices as well.

@charlierybak If they hide it, then they can get re elected

@charlierybak @shannonkwatson If the DFL stopped endorsing in non-partisan races in the cities, I would support moving them to even years. Under the current system, moving them to even years would be the abolition of municipal elections because the DFL endorsement would be unbeatable down-ballot