Municipal Elections in California: Turnout, Timing, and Competition

Research publications reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the staff, officers, or Board of Directors of the Public Policy Institute of California. Short sections of text, not to exceed three paragraphs, may be quoted without written permission provided that full attribution is given to the source and the above copyright notice is included. iii Foreword The PPIC Statewide Survey has shown time and again that California voters distrust their government. The roots of that distrust are deep and complex, but its policy effects are often quite clear. For example, California voters rely more heavily now on the initiative process to guide public policy, in part because they do not believe that their elected representatives will address the problems they think are important. One can argue at length over the advantages and disadvantages of specific initiatives, and one can do the same for the initiative process generally. But it is more difficult to argue that the distrust that has made the initiative process so important is itself salutary. This distrust becomes even more difficult to celebrate when it manifests itself as political apathy or even disgust. These reactions have kept large numbers of citizens from registering to vote in the first place. When we combine these unregistered citizens with the noncitizen population living in California, and then add to this group the registered voters who do not go to the polls, we find that, in many cases, an alarmingly small percentage of California residents decides a local election. This pattern is especially pronounced in off-cycle local elections, when turnout rates typically lag those of local elections that coincide with statewide and national contests. In a political system based on an informed and active citizenry, low and declining participation rates are a great concern. Indeed, increasing those rates may be the most important policy challenge of the early 21st century. But what are the most practical ways to meet that challenge? In this report, Zoltan Hajnal, Paul Lewis, and Hugh Louch offer a detailed description of local turnout patterns and analyze the factors associated with high and low participation rates. Their results indicate that about half the difference in voter turnout across California cities can be traced to a single factor—election timing. Noting that Progressive Era reformers instituted off-cycle local elections, and that one-third of iv California's cities continue to hold them, the authors …