Political watchers from all sides criticize Austin City Council decision to keep elections in May

The reality, tucked in near the bottom of the editorial, is embodied in a three-page letter to the council from Dean Rindy, one of the legions of consultants without which the city of Austin would cease to function.

In the letter, Rindy urged the council to reject November elections, regardless of cost. Yes, more people would come out to vote, Rindy wrote, but the election would not become more democratic, merely more uninformed. And why? Because voters are hard-wired to reason through only so many elections at one time, Rindy said, without punctuating the sentence with a smiley face.

“This would not be the voters’ fault,” Rindy said, making his compassion obvious. “It would be the fault of combining too many elections with too many candidates at too many levels at the same time. People are not computers with infinite capacity on their hard drives. They can only take so much input.”

This much input was clear to city voters long ago. Turnouts for Austin elections have been sliding, so much so that an election drawing 10 percent of the city’s eligible voters is considered spirited.

Bundling the elections in November would save taxpayers anywhere from $784,000 to $1.2 million, the Austin American-Statesman estimated. The City Council had already approved holding a November bond election and a lineup of amendments to the city charter that could include a city-wide vote to make the November municipal elections permanent.

Seemed to make sense to Mayor Lee Leffingwell and two of the council members, Mike Martinez and Chris Riley. Not to Sheryl Cole, Laura Morrison, Bill Spelman and Kathie Tovo.

Not to be outdone by Rindy’s altruism, the majority insisted it would be inappropriate to cast a vote that would not only upend the city charter but add six months to the terms of council members.

Not to mention encouraging all of those uninformed voters who may not be at all familiar with the names Cole, Morrison, Spelman and Tovo on a ballot.

Photo of voter by flickr user athrasher, used via a Creative Commons license.