Move would attract more voters
Staff editorial
When only 10 percent of the voters turn out, there’s a good chance the other 90 percent aren’t being fairly represented.
The potential is too great for special-interests groups to throw things off. After the recent disappointing turnout, Gov. Christie Whitman for the second time in her governorship, has called for moving school elections from April to November.
If local reactions are any gauge, the effort is doomed to the same failure as Gov. Whitman’s earlier effort.
The chief difficulty lies in the number of elections already held in November: Virtually every political election occurs in November, from the national level down to the local level, making it next to impossible to keep track of them all. Adding school elections to the mix simply means one more set of elections to occupy the voters’ attention, and one more set of elections in which voters could participate without knowing what they’re voting about.
And in election years with a referendum on the ballot, such competition for voters’ interest and approval would be a kiss of death.
But even if the specifics of Gov. Whitman’s idea might not work fully, the intent is a noble one and worth exploring. One alternative that has been suggested is to move school board elections to the date of the June primary, which has enough higher-profile elections that it could draw more voters to the school elections, but not so much going on that schools would be lost in the shuffle.
Unfortunately, based on information from the county Board of Elections, that option apparently is not practical since voting machines during New Jersey primaries are arranged by party. The necessary spillover of having school elections at primary time would have the unfortunate result of dragging partisan politics into school elections — the last thing we would want to have happen.
We believe that the Governor’s Office and state Legislature should consider taking a different approach to the problem. Instead of losing the school elections in the craze of November political elections, the state should consider the possibility of raising the profile of the April elections by holding other elections at the same time.
Many county positions — including freeholders, county executive and sheriff — suffer in November as they are overshadowed by higher-profile state and federal elections, so that many vote along party lines without given the issues or candidates as much consideration as they deserve. Passing legislation to move this election to the spring would give both it and the schools a higher profile and would encourage greater voter participation.