Weekend Election Puts Santa Monica Voters in Spotlight

In an idealistic attempt to boost voter turnout, Santa Monica is preparing to hold California’s first weekend election in April.

But if history is a judge, don’t expect much.

Experiments by other states from Oregon to Texas to Connecticut have found no correlation between weekend voting and voter enthusiasm. Experts say citizens who put off weekday voting to attend to the responsibilities of work and family are likely to make the same choice on Saturday, skipping voting for leisure activities.

Nevertheless, California election officials say they’ll be closely monitoring Santa Monica on April 24 and 25 when it holds a two-day, Saturday-Sunday election to determine who will take over the remaining two years of the term held by former Councilwoman Asha Greenberg, who resigned last year because she moved out of the city.

The election will include an initiative to protect apartment renters from unlawful evictions, a sensitive issue in a city whose 20-year-old rent-control ordinance has been eroded recently by state laws. Since Jan. 1, landlords in Santa Monica have been able to raise a unit’s rent whenever a tenant moves out--the so-called “vacancy decontrol” that they lost when voters imposed rent control in 1979.

Compared to some cities, whose regular March elections routinely attract 20% of eligible voters or less, Santa Monica, a city of 55,000 registered voters, has far higher participation. In the early 1980s, the city consolidated its balloting with state and federal elections. Since then, turnouts have averaged above 60%.

Since the April election offers no opportunities to piggyback off larger contests, the city looked for another means to increase the turnout.

“Saturday and Sunday allows working people a better chance to cast ballots . . . particularly in a region where people have long commutes,” said Councilman Michael Feinstein, who proposed the experiment, scheduling votes over two days to avoid a conflict with any religious obligations.

Around the world, weekend and holiday elections are a common occurrence. The International Foundation for Election Systems says 30 of the 44 democracies that it tracks use them, ranging from Belgium to Mexico to Thailand. The foundation says it has not found much evidence, however, that the process boosts turnout, which in the majority of those countries runs between 70% and 80%.

As turnout in U.S. elections has ebbed--the national turnout in November 1998 was only 36%--enthusiasm for weekend voting experiments has increased. Yet experts say turnout rarely increases.

“The problems of American democracy and participation don’t lie with procedure, but with motivation,” said Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. “Given the opportunity to choose what to do with their weekends, most voters would prefer to go fishing.”

Hawaii has historically held its primary elections on a Saturday. And New England townships routinely hold referendums on weekends. As early as 1978, an initiative to recall the mayor of Cleveland was held on a Sunday because supporters of the measure thought it would produce enough votes to oust the mayor. (They were wrong.) In the city of South Milwaukee, supporters of a bond initiative were banking on a strong Saturday turnout last year to raise money for schools. (They were wrong too.)

Santa Monica’s weekend voting plan has its critics. It passed 3 to 2, with one councilman, Robert T. Holbrook, calling the idea silly and insisting that “most people relate to a Tuesday election.” A backlash has occurred in some American cities that have experimented.

In 1993, when Connecticut Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. ordered special elections on Saturday and Sunday in some townships to fill slots for the General Assembly, he angered town officials, who retaliated by pushing a law through the legislature stripping the governor of his power to order future weekend elections.

“The towns complained because they had to pay double time for janitors to come and open the buildings for the elections,” said Mary Young, an attorney for Connecticut’s secretary of state.

In Texas, the voting period has been extended up to 17 days before an election date, allowing voters to cast ballots on the weekend or weekdays. Oregon has permitted voters to mail in their ballots without going through the process of applying for an absentee ballot.

In both of those states, a nonpartisan group called the Voting Integrity Project has sued in federal court, claiming that both states are limiting independent monitoring and increasing the possibility of voter fraud.

Deborah Phillips, president of the Virginia-based Voting Integrity Project, said she also is critical of Santa Monica’s election because of the complications involved in providing security for an election over two days.

Although Santa Monica’s election marks the first time a California city will hold its entire election on a weekend, it’s not the first time voters in the state will have cast weekend ballots.

Following the Texas model, several California counties began experimenting in 1994 with early weekend balloting before a regular Tuesday election date. San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa Clara counties were among those trying to boost voter turnout by making it easier for people to vote. Voters were allowed to cast ballots early at a small number of selected locations.

But by 1997, the early election system came under heavy criticism during close balloting on whether San Francisco should build a controversial football stadium for the 49ers. Opponents of the stadium complained that several polling places had been placed in areas where there was heavy support for the project.

The experiment did not lead to dramatic increases in voting, said Alfie Charles, spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.

Charles said state officials are interested in how Santa Monica handles ballot security.

City officials say they plan to conduct an extensive advertising campaign to boost turnout for the $158,000 election, including banners on buses, fliers and sending notices home with schoolchildren.

Ballots cast Saturday will be placed in a vault in the city clerk’s office and guarded overnight until Sunday’s ballots are completed and delivered there for counting. The additional day of balloting will cost the city $20,000.

“We are treating it like it is one election being held over 48 hours,” said Santa Monica City Clerk Maria M. Stewart.