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Phoenix, Tucson fight change in election calendar

By Dustin Gardiner The Republic | azcentral.com Thu May 16, 2013 10:42 PM

Tucson and Phoenix are waging a legal fight to overturn a state law that would require local governments to move their elections to even-numbered years to coincide with statewide contests for president and governor.

If the law takes effect in 2014, Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and other municipal elected officials could have their terms extended by several months or even a year.

A Pima County Superior Court judge on Monday denied the cities’ request for summary judgment in the case, saying that he needs to get more information than already submitted in court filings. A hearing will likely be scheduled in the next month, so the parties can debate the facts further.

City leaders had sought a decision on the law’s validity and an injunction to prevent it from taking effect while they argue the issue in court. They said the law interferes with a matter of purely local concern: their authority to determine how to conduct elections.

Cities and towns across Arizona have objected to the law and cite a long list of potential consequences, including that local elections would become fiercely partisan or draw little attention at the bottom of a more crowded ballot. The law, signed by Gov. Jan Brewer in 2012, will impact roughly half of the state’s 70 municipalities.

Supporters of the move have said it will increase voter turnout and help some cities and towns save money because they could utilize county elections resources, instead of paying the cost of printing ballots and staffing elections on their own.

In Phoenix, Stanton and four council members — Bill Gates, Thelda Williams, Michael Nowakowski and Daniel Valenzuela — could potentially serve a year beyond their elected terms, which expire in 2015, assuming they stay in office for that long. Each council member represents about 180,000 residents who would have to wait longer to elect their representative.

Tucson filed its lawsuit against the state in October after several months of cities grappling over how they might respond. A few months later, Phoenix joined the case as an intervenor, meaning the city can argue the case, which will impact all Arizona charter municipalities.

Phoenix City Clerk Cris Meyer said the law would require sweeping changes to the city’s election system and do away with the city-focused process voters have requested over the years, particularly the emphasis on a nonpartisan election cycle.

“Commingling of the state’s and Phoenix’s processes, including potentially commingled ballots, diminishes Phoenix’s ability to ensure a pristine process, free of party politics and state or federal issues typically associated with party platforms,” attorneys for Phoenix argued in court documents.

Phoenix voters decided in the 1970s to permanently hold their elections on the opposite years as presidential and gubernatorial contests. Changing that would require voters to approve amendments to the City Charter. The new law also conflicts with charter language that governs the mayor and council’s term limits and salary changes, among other issues.

The city would likely have to abandon its voting-center system, which allows residents to cast an in-person ballot at more than 20 locations starting several days before the election. Arizona holds elections on a single day, and voters have assigned precincts.

However, attorneys for the state have argued the law seeks to preserve democracy, suggesting off-year elections depress voter turnout and make the process vulnerable to special-interest influence. They said any burdens to Phoenix or Tucson are “slight and incidental.”

The state Attorney General’s Office contends election alignment has led to a massive increase in voter turnout in Chandler, Scottsdale and Gilbert, which moved their elections from the spring to fall of even-numbered years. For example, 14 percent of Scottsdale registered voters turned out for the city’s March 2006 election, compared with 85 percent in fall 2008, according to court documents.

“The record is clear that election alignment causes dramatic increases in voter turnout and dramatic reductions in overall election costs and cost per vote,” the Attorney General’s Office wrote.

Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner also denied a motion by the state for a summary judgment to dismiss the case. But Marner said conflicting evidence presented by the state and cities regarding voter turnout and cost savings needs to be heard in court.