San Marcos could be changing the way it conducts its elections, but the decision ultimately will lie in voters’ hands.
At its meeting Tuesday night, the San Marcos City Council held a discussion on potential changes to the city charter — notably, changing municipal elections to November in odd-numbered years.
“I have concerns about council members being elected in even-numbered year November elections,” Mayor Jane Hughson said.
In the past, local elections were held in May, alongside San Marcos CISD trustee elections. Those elections were “San Marcos-focused,” Hughson said.
When local elections are held at the same time as national and statewide elections, she said, “It’s tough to get attention for city candidates.”
People voting straight-ticket in high-profile elections often forget that there are nonpartisan races, like city council, at the bottom of the ticket. Hughson said moving the local elections away from the statewide and national elections would give voters a chance to learn more about each candidate.
“That’s my suggestion, that we go every other year, but that we choose the odd-numbered years,” Hughson said. “... Sometimes it’s really hard to get voters’ attention over the noise of national or statewide elections.”
In order for local elections to be held in odd-numbered years, the mayor’s term would have to be extended from two years to three to make the change. Council member terms would have to change from their current three-year length to either two years or four years. One of the problems that council members foresaw is the popularity of the three-year term for council members. Several members of council said that voters seem to like the three-year term, and council member Saul Gonzales said that two years is too short of a term.
Hughson asked council newcomers Joca Marquez and Mark Rockeymoore what their thoughts were about running in an even-numbered year. Marquez said that she felt it helped because people were excited to get out and vote for the higher-profile candidates, such as Beto O’Rourke during his U.S. Senate run. Rockeymoore said that he felt it was hard to compete for voter attention during a high-profile election season.
“It was difficult, getting lost in the national brouhaha and the statewide elections,” he said.
However, both said that the runoff election was different because voters were more focused.
“The fact that it was rarified and everyone was focused particularly on our races,” Rockeymoore said, made it easier to garner voter attention.
The council voted informally to create a commission to look at options for changing the municipal elections. Hughson said a formal vote on the commission will be on the council’s next meeting agenda. Council will have to make a decision on whether to put the potential charter changes on November’s ballot by June.
