Kansas lawmakers are studying whether local elections should be moved from the spring to the fall. Stephen Koranda reported for Kansas Public Radio that the idea is to move the local races into the traditional election season.
Wendy Underhill, with the National Conference of State Legislatures, told a legislative committee that moving elections is a mixed bag.
She says it could increase voter turnout, but would add complexity to the process of printing and distributing ballots, which can lead to errors.
“Procedures can be developed, of course, to forestall that kind of mistake, but the possibility of error has to be on list of considerations for election officials,” says Underhill.
Some proposals to move local elections would also allow candidates to run under political parties. But there are groups that don't want partisanship added to the races, which are now non-partisan.
