Election Timing: How and Why the American Election Calendar is So Scattered
Most citizens who pay even a little bit of attention to American politics understand that in November, every four years, a presidential election is held to definitively decide who wins the highest office in the country, along with most other elected federal offices (i.e., all of the U.S. House and one-third of the U.S. Senate). Presidential elections occurred or will occur in 2016, 2020, 2024, etc. Primaries in the months beforehand decide who will represent the Republican, Democratic, and minor parties, but November is the final showdown.
Many of those same people also know that midterm elections occur in November every two years before/after a presidential election for federal offices (once again all of the U.S. house and a different third of the U.S. Senate). In those same elections, thousands and thousands of state-level and local-level races decide who occupies various seats like most state legislatures, most state executives (e.g. governor, attorney general), many elected state supreme courts, some mayors, and some county commissions. Midterm election occurred or will occur in 2018, 2022, 2026, etc.
But did you know that there are many other elections throughout the country that occur outside of November of every even-numbered year?
I’m not necessarily talking about primary elections, which can be held at varying points in time (depending on the office and the state it is in) and often ultimately culminate in a November general election. I’m also not talking about special elections, which are inherently irregular in how they are timed to fill a vacancy. I’m talking about regularly-scheduled elections that definitively decide who wins an office — in months other than November and/or in an odd-numbered year.
Such unusually but regularly-timed elections are usually called “off-cycle” elections. The “off-cycle” refers to being different from the schedule of the normal, more well-known even-year elections that occur in November. (Though rarely, some commentators would even call midterms “off-cycle”.) Those elections occurring in odd-numbered years are also sometimes referred to as “off-year elections” because federal elections don’t occur then, save for some special elections.
But that is a bit of a nebulous definition. (And as you’ll see later, some political commentators and enthusiasts may not even fully agree with that definition I just posited.) What exactly makes an election off-cycle? And why do we even have them in the first place?
For one of my regular jobs, I led a book club centered on the work “Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups,” which my coworkers and I discussed, open for the public to listen in on. I even had the chance to interview the author, University of California-Berkeley Professor Sarah Anzia, in the book club’s second-to-last week. It was a fascinating deep-dive into an oft-overlooked aspect of American politics — one that has massive implications for elections despite it’s relative lack of attention.
While you should read the book to get a truly comprehensive dive into the politics surrounding election timing (and I don’t want to steal Professor Anzia’s thunder), here are some of the key aspects to know about election timing. The majority of this is informed by Professor Anzia’s book, with some bolstering from my own research.
Why Should You Care About Election Timing?
When an election is held has a significant impact on both the level of voter turnout. Presidential elections see the highest rates of turnout. The most people care and know about them, at least when it comes to the general election in November every four years. Midterm general elections have lower turnout rates than presidential elections, but still higher than, say, many primary or special elections.
Off-cycle elections, on the other hand, often see abysmally low rates of turnout much lower than all of these. Typically, off-cycle elections are for local offices such as mayors and city councils, and local elections already tend to see lower voter turnout than for federal and state-level offices. Put these local elections in, say, March or April, and it is common to see 20%, 15%, or even lower than 10% turnout rate. For comparison, presidential elections often see turnouts in the 50%, 60%, or 70% ranges depending on the district. (States, counties, and municipalities can vary wildly in levels of voter turnout.) Midterms often see turnouts in the 40% and 50% ranges.
But there is not only a major effect on the number and percentage of voters who show up, but on who shows up as well. Voters who show up in off-cycle elections are often skewed more towards the demographics that are already associated with higher turnout rates in on-cycle elections: Higher income, older, and whiter voters.
What is an Off-Cycle Election?
As was said earlier, it is a bit of a nebulous term. How unusual does an election’s timing need to be to be considered “off-cycle”?
Sometimes, even by a vague definition such as that, an election easily fits the description. Take the Chicago and Tampa mayoral elections, for example (the former of which is still ongoing at the time of this writing). Both of these elections occur every four years in odd-numbered years. Chicago’s general election was February 28th, 2023, and a run-off between the top two vote-getters, Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson, will be decided on April 4, 2023. Tampa’s election was already decided without a run-off on March 7, 2023, when incumbent Jane Castor handily won re-election.
Chicago and Tampa appear to be obvious examples of off-cycle elections. But it isn’t always clear-cut.
Only four states — Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia — hold state legislative elections in odd-numbered years. But they are ultimately decided on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November . . . just like presidential and midterm elections, but in odd-numbered years instead. Those states, along with Kentucky, elect governors and other statewide executives (e.g. attorney general) in odd-numbered years as well. A few of these states have been that way significantly longer than any of us have been alive. Do we call these elections off-cycle? Should our definition of off-cycle be entirely based on an election’s relation to the timing of presidential elections, or should it be based on the timing of statewide elections?
What about elections that could be decided in November, but have a chance to be decided before then? Louisiana has a unique majority-vote system for most of its elections where the top two vote-getters in a primary move onto a general election — unless one of those vote-getters wins a majority in the primary. In that case, the top vote-getter wins the election outright and avoids having a November general election.
Should we call these “off-cycle” because they can be decided well before November? Or is the simple possibility of a November election enough to call it “on-cycle”? Does it warrant a new categorization entirely? There are no easy answers.
How Did We Get Off-Cycle Elections?
Off-cycle elections have been around since the United States achieved independence from Great Britain, or at least close to it. But what an off-cycle election was early in U.S. history was even murkier than it is now. In fact, the day of presidential election wasn’t established as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November until the passage of the Presidential Election Day Act of 1845. Presidential elections were more or less still around the same time, but Election Day wasn’t on a single day for every state prior to that legislation. Election Day for congressional seats weren’t uniform, either, until 1872.
Yet even with this law, there were still a significant number of elections held for other offices at different times than the presidential election. Concrete data was considerably difficult for Professor Anzia to come by because the data either doesn’t exist, was lost, or is very obscure. But through painstaking research, she found that off-cycle elections have existed since at least the latter half of the 1800s. The Progressive Era activists of the late 1800s and early 1900s were successful in moving more elections to an off-cycle format, something they saw as necessary to reform entrenched government interests. Professor Anzia notes that there is a debate as to their real motives (along with proposing her own theory), but the point is that off-cycle elections are far from a new concept.
What do Supporters and Opponents of Off-Cycle Election Timing Have to Say?
There are many arguments that have been or might be made by both the supporters and opponents of off-cycle election timing. Here are some of the most common rationales for either side:
Supporters’ arguments for off-cycle election timing
- Off-cycle elections insulate local and/or state elections from the national political climate’s influence, keeping the focus on local issues.
- Off-cycle election voters are more informed about the elections and issues as opposed to the wider public that participates in on-cycle elections.
- Off-cycle elections mitigate the ballot roll-off that comes with the longer ballots of on-cycle election. (Ballot roll-off refers to the fact that voter participation in elections decreases the farther down the ballot you go. For example, presidential and gubernatorial races that are at the top of the ballot see more voters making a choice in them than, say, state legislative or county commission races, which they may leave blank.)
Opponents’ arguments against off-cycle election timing
- Off-cycle elections effectively disenfranchise many voters through lowering turnout rates by adversely affecting poor and minority voters, thus making them unrepresentative.
- Off-cycle elections further increase the influence of interest groups who already have a greater stake in election outcomes and are more likely to vote.
- Off-cycle elections increase administration costs because there are more elections to be held. (In the U.S., local governments handle the bulk of running and administering the elections, and thus pay most of the costs of holding them.)
This is not comprehensive, and there are disagreements as to the validity of some of these arguments. But these perspectives provide a better understanding of why some people support or oppose changes to election timing.
The Future of Election Timing in American Politics
How will election timing change in the United States? Will we see more places switch to on-cycle election timing?
The 2022 election results suggest that we will. That’s because voters in 11 cities and one county passed local ballot measures last year that are moving their local elections from odd-numbered to even-numbered years. These mostly happened in California, a state that has seen more activity than usual when it comes to changing election timing. (In fact, an entire chapter of Professor Anzia’s Timing and Turnout book focused on election timing effects in California cities specifically.) Los Angeles voters in 2015 approved a measure to move their odd-year elections to align with federal and California state elections in even-numbered years. The San Bernardino City Unified School District school board voted to switch their elections to an even-year format back in December 2017. These are just some examples of recent election timing changes in California, and California is far from the only state seeing potential and enacted election timing changes.
That being said, there are still other places moving in another direction, such as the following:
- The city council of Lancaster, South Carolina, passed an ordinance to move its elections from even-numbered years to odd-numbered years.
- An Oklahoma State Senate joint resolution seeks to limit state questions to odd-numbered years. (State questions are a type of ballot measure that can be voted on. Some appeared on 2022 Oklahoma ballots.)
- While not changing years, Georgia’s Gwinnett County school board is moving its elections this year from November to May.
States vary considerably as to when they allow local governments to hold their elections, and some local areas have more autonomy in this regard than others. Chartered local governments, for example, might have more leeway in when they can hold elections, but it depends on the state and the type of election in question (e.g. school boards, mayors, city councils). As Professor Anzia talked about in Timing and Turnout, there was a shift over time in how state legislatures controlled local election timing. States moved from special legislation that affected specific local governments to general legislation that institute a blanket date, or range of dates, that local governments must hold elections in. Some states’ timeframes they allow elections to be held in are more restrictive than in other states and may vary by type of office.
Will we see more elections around the nation move to the more well-known format of November in even-numbered years? We undoubtedly will, but how many is hard to say. As seen from the arguments made in favor of off-cycle elections and how resistant to election timing change some elected officials are (e.g. Kentucky and Virginia’s state legislatures), such change may come slowly and only in certain areas of the country.
Election timing is also still a relatively obscure topic. Even if more people become aware of the policy debate surrounding it, there is no guarantee that there will be major change in election timing.
Professor Anzia’s research includes polling data on people’s opinions about off-cycle elections. When people were made aware of the concept of off-cycle elections, sizable majorities of Republicans (61%), Democrats (73%), and independents (65%) indicated a preference for having them on-cycle. There was a similar finding when breaking down respondents on their self-reported ideology — 66% of conservatives, liberals (73%), and moderates (67%). When asked about their feelings on off-cycle election timing’s low turnout, 34% said it bothers them a lot and 38% said it bothers them somewhat.¹
Despite these findings, however, Professor Anzia notes that public opinion does not match the American election schedule. If it did, there would be significantly fewer off-cycle elections than we see now. Americans may care about the issue when they are informed about it, but clearly it is not enough to really drive a lot of voters to push for election timing change. After all, there are plenty of economic and social issues that complicate matters. It’s also hard for many people to keep up with most of the details of what their elected officials are doing and debating about.
One thing is for certain, though: Election timing is an intriguing and vital subject that has profound implications for the function and effects of American politics.
- Sarah F. Anzia. Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups. Pages 88–89.
