It seems like there’s always another election right around the corner. From primaries to runoffs and special elections, voter fatigue is starting to set in across the City of Houston.
Gary Polland, the publisher of the Texas Conservative Review, is calling out the problem and says it’s depressing voter turnout. According to him: “When there’s no interest, there’s no vote. So when you have things like the City Council runoff, you have only 6% of the registered population voting. Are you kidding?”
Polland also says back-to-back elections, which sometimes have long and complicated ballots, can make it difficult for voters to be informed heading into the polls. “You want voters to be high-information voters, but to get that with that many races is virtually impossible, and that encourages apathy,” he said.
He added that reducing the total number of elections by moving bond and special elections to November would also go a long way toward reducing voter fatigue and giving voters more time to research candidates and ballot proposals.