City of Lincoln #2 - Even Year Elections starting 2028
The Wording
SHALL ARTICLES III AND IV OF THE LINCOLN CITY CHARTER BE
AMENDED TO ALIGN CITY ELECTIONS WITH STATEWIDE ELECTIONS BEGINNING IN 2028 SO THAT MAYORAL AND DISTRICT COUNCIL MEMBER ELECTIONS ARE HELD IN BOTH 2027 AND 2028; AND THAT AT-LARGE COUNCIL MEMBERS ELECTED IN 2025 SHALL SERVE UNTIL THEIR SUCCESSORS ARE ELECTED IN 2030; AND THAT ELECTED TERMS OF A LENGTH DIFFERENT THAN FOUR YEARS DUE TO THIS PROVISION SHALL COUNT AS A FOUR-YEAR TERM FOR PURPOSES OF TERM LIMITS?
VOTE FOR or AGAINST
I vote FOR the proposed amendment.
I vote AGAINST the proposed amendment.
Our Explanation
Just getting some of these initiatives onto the ballot had its own adventures. A group called Good Government Lincoln had three items they wanted the voters to vote on in November. Besides the many volunteers supporting the ideas, they hired a group to help with acquiring signatures. Unfortunately, some individuals within this group proved money-hungry enough to forge signatures. Fortunately, they were caught when roughly 60% of the signatures were identified as invalid! The volunteers went back to work and still submitted enough signatures, but barely on time. The City of Lincoln said they couldn’t put them on the ballot for November because they didn’t have enough processing time.
The Attorney General filed suit, saying the deadline had been met. The Nebraska Supreme Court agreed, and the city was required to include them on the ballot. But the city then added some alternatives. #’s 3 and 5.
Ballot Question 2 asks voters if city elections could happen with statewide elections instead of on the odd-numbered years as they happen now. Question 2 sets this to begin in 2028. Basically, two main reasons push this recommendation. First, it would be a financial savings for the city to not have to pay for the city elections, because the city council and mayor races could just be added to the already existing ballot.
The second reason is to use the better voter turnout. In the 2024 Presidential election, 78% of registered voters voted in Lincoln. The year before, in the 2023 Lincoln city election, only 46% voted. Worse than that, in 2025, only 26.74% voted. Doing the arithmetic with rough figures means 16% decide who determines public policy for 300,000 people. (Roughly 60% are registered voters.)
Some assume people have political “burn out” and are glad to be done with political ads after November. So when only 3 months later the political stuff starts back up for the Spring city elections, they don’t want to hear it.
Others, though, think that the city races will be ignored just being added to the long list of other candidates. Candidates will sometimes be concerned that they cannot hire good campaign managers because they will be serving the “big” names on the ballot.
It should also be noted that #2 has the 2027 mayor and city council district offices happening as usual, but then again in 2028. The at-large city council members elected in 2025 would hold office until 2030. The term length different from 4 years from this change over would be counted as 4-years for purposes of term limits.
Those who see the importance of this approach think that if it’s a good idea, it should be done now instead of later.
Voting FOR this provision would establish city elections to be along with regular elections in even-numbered years, starting in 2028
Voting AGAINST this provision would leave things as they are voting in odd-numbered years – unless #3 passes.