Indiana

Where K-S & AHS Split

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

Anyone who reads this blog knows I am a big fan of the Kernan-Shepard Report.  There’s a hearing this morning on some of its provisions.   Indiana Government could use a major colon cleansing and a lot of layers should go away for more accountability and eventually more savings.  However, there is one part of the report where I have to differ; municipal elections.

Kernan-Shepard recommends moving municipal elections to the off-year cycle, in order to save money and increase voter participation.  Noble goals.  However, I honestly think with so many important local issues, local elections deserve special treatment and the public’s complete and undivided attention.

Here’s what I think would be the perfect compromise…

• Keep local elections in the odd-numbered year, but shorten them.  Instead of going from May to November,  go from May to June or July.  Who needs six months to run for a Council seat?
• Consolidate the primaries and let the top two vote-getters face a run off. I’m even willing to declare a winner in the primary if someone gets more than 65 percent of the vote.  Let’s be honest, there really isn’t a “Democratic” or “Republican” way to run a city, either you know how to do it or you don’t.
• Get rid of voting precincts and switch to vote centers.  You can do them by council district or township.  Have the voting center running for two weeks prior to election day.  Anyone who can’t find a couple minutes out of two weeks to go vote probably shouldn’t be voting to begin with.  Also it should be a lot easier to manage a dozen voting centers for a couple weeks as opposed to 500 precincts for 12 hours.
• Add school board elections to the off-year elections.  School boards, although I have no use for them, are still local government.
• And I would also eliminate straight-ticket voting, for obvious reasons.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on January 26, 2009 (boomark / email).