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Baltimore City Government Wants to Sync Elections with the Federal Cycle

As a good counterpoint to my previous two negative blog posts about Baltimore City government (here and here), here is something positive. For various reasons, local elections in the city have taken place in really odd years, like 2011 when no other state or federal election was held. The result was an extremely low voter turnout, extra costs for operating the elections system without funds from state or federal government, and for elected officials, an easy way to get re-elected. Now comes word from the Baltimore Sun, that the city is finally lobbying the state’s legislature to help them move the elections to the federal cycle (I got this via my community association’s email list, which they got from the Mayor’s Office):

Baltimore officials plan to ask the General Assembly to pass legislation to align the city’s municipal elections with the federal cycle, the city’s chief lobbyist said Monday. The change would “save the City money and engage more citizens in our elections,” according to a memo the lobbying team handed out to City Council members at a luncheon meeting Monday.

If the proposal goes through, the first one will take place in 2016, which is the next Presidential election and the current officials just elected in 2011 would server 5 years instead of the usual 4. Of course a lot of work is needed before this happens including both state and local legislation, and probably a charter amendment and a referendum. But is nice to see that there are still people in the city government concerned about finances and election turnout.

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