How Much Say Do You Have in Who Your Government Officials are?
Most people want to have a say in who represents them in government. Our right to vote is a cornerstone of the American political system. But just how much do citizens get to choose their government officials?
More than four years ago, I wrote a post about elected vs. appointed officials. In short, some government officials are elected by voters, while some are appointed by other government officials. Depending on where you live in the U.S., you’ll have a varying number of elected offices for which you can vote for. And the same office in one state or locality might be elected while in a different state or locality it might be appointed.
The amount of choice that voters have in choosing their government can be quite varied not just between federal, state, and local levels, but between the branches of government within a level of government as well. There are three branches of government: Executive, legislative, and judicial. The executive branch executes and enforces laws. The legislative branch writes laws. The judicial branch interprets laws and judges their constitutionality.
At the federal level, the elected officials are the following:
- The only executive branch officials we elect are the president/vice presidential ticket. The Cabinet (e.g. attorney general, secretary of state) and other executive branch agencies are not elected by the voters.
- From the legislative branch, we elect the U.S. House representative of our district we live in and the U.S. Senators of our state.
- None of the judicial branch occupants are elected by voters. Their appointment is made according to Article III of the U.S. Constitution.
But at the state level, circumstances are often much different. What’s appointed at the federal level may frequently be elected at the state level. The same can be said of many local governments if they have an equivalent office.
So, which state’s voters get the most say in electing their government officials? Well, stop me if you’ve heard this before: Like with many things in politics, the answer isn’t straightforward. Calculating the numbers is straightforward, but how to count that towards the “winner(s)” of this just-now-made-up contest is more complicated. I’ll show you these caveats in the sections below, broken up into each state government’s branch, though I’ll still give you the top 5 and bottom 5 states in each category in terms of the number of elected officials (e.g. the five states that elect the most and the least officials in each state’s legislative branch). I’ll also give a brief overview of how much voters get to choose their local elected officials toward the end of this post.
State Governments: Executive Branch
The executive branch houses most of the statewide officials in a state (exceptions include supreme court justices in the judicial branch). While we can only vote for president/vice president in the federal executive branch, almost every state can vote for more executive branch officials in their state governments.
A caveat here, when considering how much say voters have in choosing their executive branch officials, is that some executive offices have multiple occupants, such as public service commissions. So, while State A voters may have more offices to vote on than State B, State B voters may have more total officials to pick because of offices with multiple occupants. For example, Hawaii only has three offices to vote on compared to Idaho’s five, but because of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ nine members, Hawaii has 11 total officials to vote for while Idaho still only has five. Which state’s voters have more choice in their state executive officials then? That partially depends upon whether your metric is the number of offices or the number of individual officials.
That said, if we go by the total number of officials, the top 5 and bottom 5 states in number of elected executive branch officials comes out to this list:
- 1st: Michigan (36 elected state executive officials)
- 2nd: Nebraska (27 elected state executive officials)
- T-3rd: Colorado and Ohio (25 each)
- 5th: Texas (24)
- …
- 46th: Virginia (3)
- T-47th: Alaska and New Jersey (2 each)
- T-49th: Maine and Tennessee (1 each)
Michigan takes the top spot, mostly thanks to its board of regents, which is more like three different boards. That’s because there is one specific to each of the University of Michigan (called regents), Michigan State University (called trustees), and Wayne State University (called governors). Each of those boards have eight members. Then there is a separate state board of education with eight members as well.
On the other end, the only state executive official that Maine and Tennessee voters get to choose is their governor. Alaska and New Jersey rank just ahead because they also get to vote for their lieutenant governors.
State Governments: Legislative Branch
The legislative branch of governments tends to be the most numerous in membership compared to the executive and judicial branches. Also unlike the executive and judicial branches, all of the legislative branch officials are elected. However, there are a couple caveats when accounting for which state has the most choice in picking its legislative officials:
- Voters can only choose from candidates running in the district they live in. A voter in Maine State House District 3 cannot vote for any state legislative candidates running in Maine State House District 51, for example. The whole voting body of a state might get to collectively choose a lot of state legislators, but each singular voter only gets to pick one…
- Unless they are voting in a state legislative district that is also a multi-member district. MMDs are just like they sound: Multiple people get to represent the district in the legislature. Only nine states use MMDs, and Vermont is the only state that uses MMDs for both its house and senate. A district like (deep breath) New Hampshire House of Representatives Rockingham 25 gets as much as nine representatives, though most MMDs are not nearly that large.
Therefore, voters in MMDs tend to have more choice in who represents them in the state legislature than voters in single-member districts (SMDs) simply by virtue of having more people they can vote for. Regardless, no voter picks out a whole legislative chamber.
That being said, we’ll simplify things by making this a simple statewide comparison: Which state has the most people who represent the public in the legislature?
- 1st: New Hampshire (424 total legislators)
- 2nd: Pennsylvania (253 total legislators)
- 3rd: Georgia (236)
- 4th: New York (213)
- 5th: Minnesota (201)
- …
- 46th: Hawaii (76)
- 47th: Nevada (63)
- 48th: Delaware (62)
- 49th: Alaska (60)
- 50th: Nebraska (49)
New Hampshire is far-and-away the “winner” because it has a whopping 400 state representatives. (Why such a small state needs that many representatives is beyond me.) However, they have the 4th-smallest state senate in the country at 24 members — perhaps ironic given the size of the state house.
At the other end, Alaska has both the smallest state house AND senate…but it’s not the smallest overall legislature. How is that possible? Because Nebraska is the one state that has a unicameral legislature, making this change back in the 1930s. It does not have a state house, therefore making it the smallest legislature despite not having the smallest state senate.
State Governments: Judicial Branch
In state-level judiciaries, there are two sub-levels: Supreme courts (SSCs) and intermediate appellate courts (IACs). Usually, a state has one of each these, but that is not always the case. Eight states do not even have an IAC (West Virginia just established one last year). Oklahoma and Texas have two SSCs, and Alabama and Pennsylvania have two IACs. And similar to the legislative branch, an IAC may be broken up into several district courts where only voters within a court’s jurisdiction may vote for that particular district court’s judges. How many judges are on these benches varies between states, especially in IACs.
Oftentimes, these judges are elected. Here is where a major caveat comes in terms of which state’s voters have the most say in who their judges are: These elections can look much different across states. It may be a partisan or nonpartisan election (or the Michigan method). But sometimes, even if it is a state where judges are initially appointed by a government official like the governor, judges come up for retention elections. A retention election is where voters simply state “yes” or “no” to keeping an incumbent judge. Retention elections, then, are sort of like a Hobson’s Choice (although if voters do not retain a judge, someone will fill that seat eventually).
Regardless of the number of judges elected in any of these systems, does a retention election mean voters have less choice in who their judges are than in a partisan or nonpartisan election featuring multiple candidates to choose from? And does this answer change when it comes to states that use retention elections in conjunction with partisan or nonpartisan elections? (For example, Montana’s Supreme Court judges run in nonpartisan elections, but if they are unopposed they must run in a retention election instead.)
In any case, 12 states do not allow voters to pick state-level judges in any way. As such, I extended the bottom ranks of this list and made these 12 states a collective entry, while adding the next-lowest four states.
- 1st: California (113 total elected state-level judges)
- 2nd: Texas (98 total elected state-level judges)
- 3rd: Florida (80)
- 4th: Ohio (77)
- 5th: Illinois (61)
- …
- 35th: Montana (7)
- T-36th: North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming (5 each)
- T-39th: 12 states have 0 elected state-level judges (Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia)
All of the top five states are some of the most populated states. Each of their IACs are split into multiple district courts, and voters only pick from candidates running in said voters’ district court jurisdiction.
The “Winner” of the Most Elected State Offices Competition
Caveats and nuances aside, which state has the most elected state-level officials? Drumroll please…
For the final standings…
- 1st: New Hampshire (430 total elected state-level officials)
- 2nd: Texas (303 total elected state-level officials)
- 3rd: Pennsylvania (289)
- 4th: Georgia (273)
- T-5th: California and Florida (245 each)
- …
- 46th: Nevada (96)
- 47th: Nebraska (89)
- 48th: Hawaii (87)
- 49th: Alaska (71)
- 50th: Delaware (68)
New Hampshire wins because of its gargantuan state house (which also features MMDs). That’s despite how few elected state executives the state has, the fact that none of its state supreme court is elected, and the fact that it has no intermediate appellate court. Congratulations, Granite State.
But while New Hampshire “wins” in terms of state-level elected officials, that doesn’t necessarily mean New Hampshire residents have the most overall elected officials…
But What About Local Governments?
Not everybody within a state has the same number of elected officials to vote on. That’s because there are a bunch of local government officials to select as well. There are far too many local governments to account for here — the U.S. Census Bureau counted 90,126 of them in 2017. Whatever community or communities have the most elected officials, it would take a prohibitively long time to sift through every part of the country to find out the answer.
Thus, here is a basic, quick overview of the numbers of elected officials that voters can select when we consider how many elected officials we have to vote for.
- There are a lot of different types of local officials at the city and county levels, from general-purpose to specific-purpose governments. General-purpose governments deal with a wider range of policy areas, such as a city council. Specific-purpose governments have a narrow range of policy areas, including special districts.
- Some cities/towns elect officials that other cities/towns do not elect, if they even have those officials. Places like Philadelphia have an elected register of wills. Places like St. Augustine, Florida, have an elected mosquito control district.
- None of the counties in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and only some counties in Massachusetts, have a county government at all. Thus, county offices like county commissions do not exist in those places.
- Incorporated communities are usually going to have more elected local officials than unincorporated communities. That’s because with incorporation comes a community’s own specific government, such as a mayor and city council.
- An office that has multiple seats, such as a city council or county commission, may be voted on as at-large or by-district seats. At-large seats represent the entire jurisdiction (e.g. an at-large city councilor represents the whole city), so they are voted on by all of the voters in that area. By-district seats represent only certain sections of the jurisdiction, and are usually voted on by only that section’s voters. Sometimes, though, a by-district seat may be voted on as if they were an at-large seat, and all of the jurisdiction’s voters vote on the seat even if they are not in that specific district.
It is difficult, or at least time-consuming, to determine which local area or areas have the most elected officials to vote for. New Hampshire has the most state-level elected officials, but if there are enough local officials to also have to choose, there might be local areas outside of New Hampshire that have more overall elected officials representing them.
The Future of Elected and Appointed Offices
Every so often, states see ballot measures put in front of voters to determine whether an elected official should be become appointed and vice versa. Examples include the following:
- In 1982, an attempt to make the Ohio Public Utilities Commission elected instead of appointed failed to pass.
- In 1998, Florida voters approved a measure to shift the secretary of state and commissioner of education from elected to appointed offices.
- Prior to 2023, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission was a five-member elected body, and now it is a three-member appointed body.
State legislative and ballot measure attempts to change whether an office is elected or appointed will continue to be made from time to time. While some commonalities in those debates will arise, how those debates look will largely be determined by the office in question and state/local factors. The arguments made in favor of electing the attorney general in Alaska could look different than those in favor of electing the attorney general in Hawaii. A group in Maryland might argue that making the state’s public service commission elected would make them more accountable to the people, but wouldn’t argue the same thing for the state’s commissioner of insurance because they feel the policy area is too complicated for voters (or vice versa).
In any case, whether a given office should be elected or appointed by other government officials is an important discussion to have. It’s obviously vital that voters have some say in picking the officials who represent them. But just how much choice should voters have? That’s for you to decide.
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