COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – As Morgantown City Council prepares to discuss proposed changes to Morgantown’s city charter that would extend and stagger city council terms, now may be the right time to critically examine overhauling Morgantown’s entire election process.
That would include moving the city election date, extending council members terms and eliminating the petition to get on the ballot.
Morgantown City Council opened the proverbial can of worms last Tuesday during its Committee of the Whole meeting. The ordinance before council would extend councils current two-year terms to four and terms would be staggered to avoid all seven council seats coming up for election in the same year.
The discussion quickly shifted to the possibility of moving the date of municipal elections to coincide with county elections followed by other suggestions on how to improve the electoral process.
It seems the time is right for the council to consider sweeping changes to the process that could increase voter participation and attract more people become active in local government.
Those changes need to start with holding municipal elections to coincide with county elections. Monongalia County Clerk Carye Blaney stated on Morgantown AM, it would be free for the city to add the council elections to the ballot in May or November. Blaney also pointed out more than 6,000 voters within the city cast ballots during the 2016 primary and over 8,500 voted in the 2016 general election.
That’s a far cry from the 2,707 votes counted in the 2017 municipal election on the final Tuesday in April.
Other urban areas, such as Charleston, Huntington, and Parkersburg, hold their elections in conjunction with the county. In the most recent election, voter turnout in Charleston and Huntington were both well over 50 percent.
Those cities also elect council members to four-year terms, which provides the municipality with a sense of stability and an opportunity to see projects through, while also giving new council members a bit of a grace period to learn the ropes.
Additionally, the other large municipalities in West Virginia have also eliminated the requirement that a candidate collect signatures in order to be placed on the ballot.
In Morgantown, a candidate must obtain 75 signatures from residents in the ward in which the candidate resides to be on the ballot. The original intent of the city charter was to candidates out door-to-door in their neighborhoods to listen to the issues directly from residents.
However, it is not uncommon for others to collect signatures on behalf of the candidates, thus circumventing the intent of the charter.
Whether it intended to or not, Morgantown City Council has started a conversation that is bigger that merely extending council members’ terms. It now has an opportunity to make sweeping changes to improve the city’s entire election process.
Data from the other large municipalities in West Virginia and right here in Morgantown suggests such changes would increase voter turnout and overall participation in local government.
And those results are hard to argue against.