What’s on Your Local Ballots: Your Questions Answered | Bolts

Bolts responds to six reader questions about what’s happening downballot.

Ask Bolts, Daniel Nichanian | October 11, 2024

November is fast approaching, and with it a myriad of state and local elections. We published a guide last week to more than 500 races, and why they matter, to help you navigate it.

But we also wanted to hear from you. For “Ask Bolts,” our ongoing series in which we tackle reader questions, we asked you what you wanted to know about these upcoming elections.

As always, you came through with many thoughtful questions. Today I tackle six of them—a fun opportunity to introduce you to our team’s elections reporting and research in a new way.

Navigate to the question that most interests you here, or scroll down to explore them all at your leisure:

What are the interesting referenda in November?Jump to our answer.

What is a state auditor, and why should I care?Jump to our answer.

What’s the best way to find out about nonpartisan judges? So many people tell me they have no idea and leave the ballot blank. Jump to our answer.

I have a lot of friends who say, “I live in D.C., it’s not like my vote matters that much.” What downballot races can I advocate for? Jump to our answer.

What’s the most unusual office that’s having elections?Jump to our answer.

Where can people get involved as poll monitors? I can travel. Jump to our answer.

Stay tuned for more before election day. And if you have a question, it’s not too late to share it!

What are the interesting referenda in November? — @tomwwhittington, on BlueSky

Lucky for you, our cheat sheet lists dozens of state and local ballot measures, ranging from abortion rights and labor to criminal justice and election rules. You may have heard of the biggest ones: Arizona and Florida could reverse abortion restrictions. Ohio may switch to independent redistricting, which would undo GOP gerrymanders by 2026. Alaska could repeal ranked-choice voting, two years after Sarah Palin blamed it for her loss.

But many important measures remain under the radar. Take Arizona’s Prop 134: The GOP hopes it’ll squash future citizen-led initiatives, as their party is frustrated that progressives have used this to sponsor reforms like an increase to the minimum wage. This is happening beyond Arizona, too. If Measure 2 passes, North Dakota would become the only state where a measure has to pass on two separate election days within the same year to become law.

Conservatives are pushing many other big changes. North Dakota could also become the first state to eliminate property taxes if it passes Measure 4, a proposal put forth by a right-wing organization that calls property taxes “immoral.” A Kentucky measure could greenlight public funding of private schools. In Washington, a pair of referendums could undo a capital gains tax and environmental regulations. An initiative in Colorado may make it harder for people with long prison sentences to be released.

Some of the most interesting progressive efforts are happening at the municipal level. Memphis is defying Tennessee’s GOP lawmakers with a gun control measure. Some cities are looking to create new funds to boost affordable housing; many others, like Columbus and Nashville, are asking voters to hike local taxes to pour more money into public transit. I’m also watching a pair of local measures in California that would expand the franchise: Albany may lower the voting age to 16, and Santa Ana may allow noncitizens to participate in local elections. At the state level, will Nebraskans mandate paid sick leave from employers?

My list could go on, so let me end with: California and Nevada are voting on removing language from their state constitutions that allow “involuntary servitude” for incarcerated people. This would have the major ramifications in restricting forced prison labor, we reported recently.

What is a state auditor, and why should I care? — from @rutiregan, on BlueSky

Auditors, or controllers as they’re known in some places, are meant to check that government agencies are working properly—that they’re implementing programs as they should, that they’re allocating funds where they should. So it can make a difference whether an auditor believes in the basic mission of the public services they’re supposed to be assessing.

But auditors also have the discretion to set the priorities of their office, based on which agencies and programs they believe are most in need of supervision. And their political outlook matters here. In 2022, Bolts covered the unusual candidacy of Kenneth Mejia, who won the office of Los Angeles controller on a vow to audit the police department after a campaign in which he raised questions about the scope of the LAPD’s $3 billion budget. He has since released a critical review of their large helicopter program. And while Mejia was running for a municipal office, state-level auditors can similarly direct their office’s resources where they think there’s a need.

This year, two states are holding competitive auditor races (North Carolina and Pennsylvania), and a common thread stands out in each: The GOP candidates are saying that state elections systems need auditing, amid conservatives’ broader rhetoric questioning election integrity.

Pennsylvania Auditor Timothy DeFoor, a Republican running for reelection, launched a review in mid-September of the state’s program to automatically register eligible voters when they interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Republicans have pushed a false narrative this fall that noncitizens are participating in U.S. elections, with Pennsylvania at the center of their efforts given its role in the presidential race. DeFoor’s Democratic challenger, state Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, accused DeFoor of “paving the way for Trump’s Big Lie 2.0” and “provid[ing] cover for dangerous conspiracies and election denialism.” DeFoor has said he was not motivated by partisan purposes in launching this review.

In North Carolina, the GOP’s auditor nominee Dave Boliek wants to create a division in charge of investigating voter rolls and voting equipment. “There’s a tremendous amount of distrust in the election process,” he said in the GOP primary. Boliek faces Democratic Auditor Jessica Holmes, who was appointed to the office last year after a prior auditor resigned in scandal.

What’s the best way to find out about non-partisan judges? So many people tell me they have no idea and leave the ballot blank. — @IndyDeVoe, on Twitter | How can I find out the party affiliation of judges running for office? — Eliz, in California

Far and away, some version of this question is what we heard from you the most—where can I possibly learn more about judicial elections?

Unfortunately, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s very difficult to find the information you’d want. Depending on where you live, you may see a dozen judicial races on your ballot at once, and in many states, these races are nonpartisan. You’re likely to find little about the candidates. Even if you come across their website or an interview with the press, which is by no means a given, they’re probably just promising to be fair and follow the rule of law.

Some local publications prepare extensive voter guides for all local judges, looking into their backgrounds and records: I’m thinking for instance of Injustice Watch in Chicago, which just published its judicial guide this week. At Bolts, we cover some local judgeships, but our comprehensive coverage is reserved for state supreme court races. To explain the stakes, we identify recent cases, review who is backing the candidates, and ask how a change in membership would shift a court.

So the first thing I’d recommend is to see if you have a newsroom in your backyard with such a guide. But as you can see from these examples, these projects devour a lot of time and resources.

If you don’t find that, there may be local legal organizations that have issued assessments. But ideally there’d be several such reports to compare critically; such organizations may conceal biases of their own, and ignore the differences between candidates’ ideological commitments.

Many judges insist they’re apolitical, even when their rulings reveal a consistent outlook. But you may find hints. For instance, who appointed them to the bench? But be careful to also learn if that official really has control over who they chose. In Florida, for instance, Governor Ron DeSantis has pushed the courts to the right with his nominations; his choice is technically constrained by the state’s nominating commission, but that body is now staunchly conservative.

Even in an ostensibly nonpartisan race, judicial candidates often receive public endorsements from parties or financial support from partisan PACs. They may be part of groups like the progressive American Constitution Society or the conservative Federalist Society. And they may have a trail of statements that clarify their beliefs. For instance, in looking at the social media account of one of the candidates for Minnesota’s supreme court, I came across numerous comments supportive of Donald Trump and conservative legal positions.

And sometimes, you’ll find candidates who are open about their views while campaigning. They may be saying that they hope to reduce mass incarceration or combat criminal justice reform, that they support or oppose abortion rights, or that they’d combat gerrymandering. Judicial races always have consequences; these are just the cases where it’s easiest to see how.

I live in Washington, D.C., and I have a lot of friends who say something along the lines of, “Well, I live in D.C., so it’s not like my vote matters that much.” What downballot races can I advocate for? — Paige, in Washington, D.C.

I won’t lie to you: The D.C. ballot isn’t the most eventful this November. Most D.C. elections are settled in Democratic primaries, since Democrats are so dominant. Plus, the contests for mayor and attorney general will only be on the ballot in two years. And while some residents tried to force recall votes against Charles Allen and Brianne Nadeau, two progressive city councilors who backed criminal justice reforms, they failed to gather enough signatures.

In fact, the most interesting aspect of D.C.’s elections this year may be who gets to vote in them: The city has begun implementing a new reform that allows noncitizens to vote in local elections.

Still, there is one big-ticket item on November’s ballot: Initiative 83.

This measure would transform the way D.C. runs its local elections. If it passes, the city would still hold primaries to decide each party’s nominee, and then a general election. But two things would change: Independents would be allowed to vote in a party’s primaries. And primaries and general elections would be decided through ranked-choice voting. Proponents say this would ramp up competition and enable more people to participate in the typically-decisive primaries. The Democratic establishment is largely fighting it, arguing that the system is too complicated and that parties should have the right to restrict their primary electorate.

But when it comes to national politics, the voices of D.C. residents continue to be devalued: They have no representation in Congress, a situation with a long and racist history. Democrats in the U.S. House passed a bill in 2021 that granted statehood to D.C., but the bill faltered in the Senate.

“D.C.’s lack of congressional representation in the year 2024 is unconscionable,” Ankit Jain told me this week. Jain, a voting rights attorney, is running this year to be one of the district’s two shadow senators. These are officials elected by residents as though they are a senator; they do not get a seat in the chamber, but they take an active part in the city’s advocacy for more representation. (Jain, a Democrat, is heavily favored against GOP nominee Nelson Rimensnyder.)

“We are American citizens who simply want the same right as every other American citizen—the right to vote and to influence our own government,” Jain said, denouncing “the injustice and racism of denying the right to vote to 700,000 tax-paying American citizens, a majority of whom are people of color and a plurality of whom are Black.” He added, “I cannot help but think that if our population was whiter that getting statehood would be much easier.”

What’s the most unusual office that’s having elections? — Paul, from New York

There’s a bevy of riches when it comes to elections that people don’t think of. Did you know Florida elects public defenders, or that, in Montana, contests for a local government study commission have become a key test for housing affordability?

For this question, I’ll pick a little-known office: Vermont’s high bailiffs. Each of Vermont’s 14 counties elects this obscure position with limited formal powers—technically, their role is to arrest the sheriff, and to act as sheriff when the sheriff is incapacitated. But in 2020, two progressives ran, and won, races for high bailiff in Addison and Windsor counties on the idea that they could leverage whatever visibility the office has to help reduce incarceration.

Dave Silberman, a drug decriminalization advocate who became Addison County high bailiff, told me at the time that people should get creative in using whatever levers of power exist in their areas to make a difference. “It’s up to me as an activist, as a person who’s looking to change the system, to use the tools at our disposal to make our society better,” he said.

I recently caught up with Silberman to talk about his first four years in the office. Silberman, who actually briefly served as acting sheriff in 2022 when the sitting sheriff was arrested over sexual assault charges, said he is wielding his bully pulpit to promote the idea that Vermont should altogether eliminate sheriffs, and has repeatedly pressed that case at the state legislature. “What we’re seeing across the country, but also here in Vermont, is that the entire construct of elected sheriffs is dangerously prone to corruption and serious abuse,” he told me. Silberman, a Democrat, is running for reelection this fall against Ron Holmes, a Republican who has repeatedly run for sheriff and has made it clear that this is his driving ambition, in stark contrast with Silberman’s position that the office ought to be abolished.

Where can persons available to serve as poll monitors be best enlisted? I can travel. Do some states require you to be a resident to be a poll monitor? — @duanehere, on BlueSky

I took your question to Jeanette Senecal, who for the last 25 years has worked at the League of Women Voters, one of the nation’s chief civic engagement organizations. Her overarching message: “It’s never too late to engage in the election process.” The increase in threats and harassment against election officials since 2020, she says, ramped up a chronic need for workers, observers, and volunteers.

If that interests you, broadly speaking, you’re allowed to engage in two ways.

First, you could be a poll worker: You’d staff the local elections office to help them run a polling place or process ballots. This is crucial, Senecal says, so “voters have the staffing and support that they need when they go to the polling places.”

Many jurisdictions already have staffed up, but some say they still need help. As of publication, for instance, Arizona says that four of its 15 counties are looking for assistance. Senecal advises people to get in touch with their local elections office, or input their information in Power the Polls, a program the League helps run that connects people to election offices.

Second, you could be an election observer. Observers monitor that processes are compliant; typically, they don’t intervene. Observers can increase public trust, Senecal says. “You become a trusted messenger within your own network to help improve confidence within your networks.” But there are also concerns that people who echo Trump’s false allegations of widespread voter fraud will fill monitor roles and act in ways that intimidate election workers.

What this all means concretely varies greatly from place to place. The National Conference of State Legislatures has a comprehensive guide that lays it out for each state. And the Brennan Center has a series on the rules in the major battleground states. Senecal says people should start by getting in touch with a local organization with an established observation program.

Can you travel to fill any of these roles? That depends. Many states require poll workers and/or election observers to reside or even be registered to vote there. But some don’t; you don’t have to be a resident of Wisconsin to be an observer there, for instance. But for anyone who wishes to get involved away from home, Senecal stresses, “there’s a lot of get out the vote activities that people can support in jurisdictions that are not their own.”

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