Photo by PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado
AURORA | Voters will decide this November whether to move Aurora municipal elections to even-numbered years to align with federal elections, which has been shown to increase voter turnout.
City council approved 6-2 an ordinance sponsored by Councilmember Alli Jackson to put a question on the November ballot to move city council elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years. Opposing council members were Stephanie Hancock and Angela Lawson, while council members Françoise Bergan and Curtis Gardner were absent.
Monday’s meeting was the deadline for council to put measures on this year’s ballot.
A majority of the council supported the switch, citing higher voter participation, while noting voters will get the ultimate decision.
Hancock and Mayor Mike Coffman said they opposed aligning the municipal ballot with even-years because they worried about voter fatigue leading people to skip questions on long ballots. They also raised concerns about local nonpartisan races being tainted by national politics and the potential impacts to campaigns, like increasing costs and more competition for fundraising.
“When we have these elections all lumped together like this, I believe that the local elections tend to get lost in the sauce,” Hancock said. “They’ll just start at the top of the ballot and just check all the way down or they’ll just vote for the national candidates or (Congressional candidates) or whoever it is and forget the rest of them. I think it’s great that we have our own elections.”
Jackson and Councilmember Alison Coombs responded that even with some participation drop-off on long ballots, switching to even-years would still ultimately mean more people voting. Coombs pushed back on the voter fatigue argument, saying voters are also fatigued by having elections every year.
“I think it creates a more stable and reliable campaign season that reduces fatigue for everyone who’s actively involved in the process and that’s one of the reasons why I support this question,” Coombs said. “Better turnout is good.”
Lawson said she wasn’t necessarily opposed to switching elections to even years, but opposed putting the question on the ballot this year because the city is also asking voters to approve a sales tax increase. She said she didn’t want those ballot questions to be overshadowed.
Jackson told the Sentinel before Monday’s meeting that she introduced the ordinance with the hope of improving participation in elections and reducing barriers to voting.
“It’s kind of a numbers game and looking at what will help voters be able to engage in the political process in a more fair and effective way,” Jackson said.
Data from Citizens Union, a nonpartisan civic watchdog group based in New York, found that several cities saw huge increases in voter participation for mayoral races after switching to even-year elections. In El Paso, the voter turnout for the mayoral race in 2017 was 8%, while in 2024 it was 35%. San Francisco saw its mayoral election turnout go from 36% in 2019 to 76% in 2024.
In Colorado, Boulder residents approved switching to even-year elections in 2022. Castle Rock and Parker also have municipal elections on even years.
The switch could also impact the cost of elections, which are more expensive in even-numbered years because more people are participating and the ballots are often longer. In 2024, the city paid more than $121,000 to place one measure on the ballot, while it paid almost $72,000 for five ballot measures and five council seats on the 2025 ballot.
About 151,400 votes were cast on a citywide ballot measure in 2024, while in 2025, the five citywide measures received between about 76,400 votes and 78,900 votes.
However, Jackson said looking at the cost of election per voter shows it’s more cost-effective to have elections in even-numbered years, adding that some money would be saved by not having to pay for elections every year.
If voters approve the change, it would go into effect for the 2030 election. To facilitate the transitions, any council members and the mayor elected in 2027 and 2029 would have three-year terms. Council members and the mayor otherwise serve four-year terms.
None of the sitting council members’ current terms would be impacted, but if they were reelected in 2027 or 2029, they would have a shorter term than usual.
Jackson said she campaigned on aligning elections with even-numbered years and served on a city committee to examine the switch prior to being elected to council, so she feels there is voter support for the measure.
“This even-year election measure is really about making a stronger democracy for our local elections,” she said.
I’ll be voting NO if this is on the ballot. My first instinct before reading this article; which the article makes fairly clear it’s best as is. Less cost and more attention to local elections and initiatives. The lower turnout I find encouraging — likely more informed, interested voters.
The kind of voters that turn out for off-year, low-turnout elections may be “more informed”, but the quality of that information is interestingly enough never examined or evaluated. What we DO know is the electorate for odd-year elections does trend older and more conservative, two demographics that are vulnerable to disinformation, misinformation, and scams. I think it explains how we end up with people like Jurinsky and Hancock elected on odd years.
I’ll be voting yes.
I now know that Bart Emanuel thinks that my 81 years are not filled with wisdom but I tend to be, “vulnerable to disinformation, misinformation, and scams.” Guess Bart doesn’t have much positive thoughts about the aging process.
I’ll be voting, no.
On the turnout issue, I agree that extreme measures to get people to vote are entirely misplaced. If someone doesn’t care enough to figure out how to register and vote, and then vote without having their hand held and someone begging them, they should not be voting.
This is an issue as the Democrat party has found that this increases participation by democrat voters who are unmotivated to vote in municipaal elections alone. This issue has been around at least a half dozen years. Expect that should this pass it will be followed up by a proposal to allow partisan elections so that voters can be directly informed on the ballot as to which is their party candidate for any office. This is not about participation or being informed, it is a play for power. If their studies showed this switch would hurt their chances at grasping power they, the Democrats, would not be promoting this. That is not necessarily evil or unexpected, but let’s be honest about the motivation.
Aside from supposedly a tendency for Democrats favoring more/higher taxation, there is nothing about party affiliation affecting local politics. The idea that candidates for city council should run on national (or even state) positions and issues on which the position on Council has no bearing or control. That the same gridlock should or could occur on our local issues (as was intimated in our last local election) should concern people
This article does spell out the pro’s and con’s of the odd/even years of elections.
Let’s talk about the messengers. Couple of years back this idea was defeated, in Council, when top socialist, Juan Marcano, and second fiddle socialist Alison Coombs brought up the same plan.
Now again, top socialist, (Marcano is gone politically), Coombs and rookie socialist Alie Jackson have brought the same plan up again. So doesn’t it sound to you that this is a high ranking situation that the socialist believe will help their cause?
You, Aurora voters, can figure out the details. What is definitely true, is that this is a change that the socialists hold to a high value of importance. That’s enough to make me not be for the change.
So in November, let’s vote it down right along with the other three tax increases this socialist Council want to pass.
The city can’t fund its way out of a wet paper bag and this council is sending 3 tax increases to the November ballot — after doing nothing to materially improve retail and dining activity so as to avoid any rate increases.
Instead we get this nonsense. Council would rather have residents just pay more taxes rather than do anything to materially boost visitor spending,
Remember this each time you learn of things that they are prioritizing instead. This is willful economic sodomy against every resident of Aurora.