The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly on Tuesday voted to postpone until August a vote on legislation that would ask peninsula voters whether to align local and state election days.
The resolution, sponsored by assembly member Richard Derkevorkian, aims to boost voter turnout by asking voters whether to bump the day borough residents vote in local elections — usually in October — to match the state and federal election day in November.
Derkevorkian has said that a potential increase in voter turnout and the convenience of voting for local and state candidates on the same day are among the pros of aligning the election dates. The logistics of running two elections at the same time and a possible bump in voter confusion, he’s said, could be among the cons.
“This advisory vote takes no action,” Derkevorkian said Tuesday. “If it were to pass, the hope would be that the assembly would abide by the public’s wishes, take up by ordinance and work through that process next year. With the goal of moving the borough elections to align with the state elections by November 2024.”
If approved, the resolution would put the question before voters during the next municipal election, on Oct. 3. Borough residents would only be casting an advisory vote that would be used to determine the extent to which the borough considers shifting the date.
“Having this as an advisory vote, my goal was to gauge the public’s interest before we put a lot of time and effort into this and spent the administration’s time, clerk’s time or assembly’s time,” Derkevorkian said. “This is going to be a lot of work if we were to take this on.”
Assembly members voted Tuesday to postpone a vote on the resolution until the assembly’s Aug. 1 meeting, with the goal of giving cities more time to provide input on the resolution. Even if the borough moved its election day, the borough’s cities would still hold city elections in October, unless individual city councils also voted to move their elections.
Gail Knobf, a poll worker from Kasilof, said she is concerned about trying to run two elections at the same time out of the Kasilof Community Church, as well as with finding enough poll workers to run both elections.
“We really do not see this is the best way to increase our voter turnout and we’d like to look at other ways of doing it,” Knobf said.
Loren Hollers, also a poll worker from Kasilof, said he supports aligning state and local election days as a way to boost turnout.
“A single day election will be by far the biggest way to get bigger turnout,” Hollers said. “Low turnout keeps everything status quo and we need people to get involved. We need people to know and people are just way more enthused about state and federal voting.”
Across all precincts, roughly 18.2% of borough voters cast ballots in the most recent regular borough election, which was held on Oct. 4, 2022. Turnout at individual precincts ranged from 2.1% in Tyonek to 29.6% in Cooper Landing. That’s compared to turnout during the Nov. 8 general election, where turnout at the same precincts was 6.4% and 35.5%, respectively.
Another public hearing and vote on Derkevorkian’s resolution will be held during the assembly’s Aug. 1 meeting.
Tuesday’s assembly meeting can be streamed on the borough’s website at kpb.legistar.com.
Reach reporter Ashlyn O’Hara at ashlyn.ohara@peninsulaclarion.com.
