Utah state senator wants to fix rules on votes

Local governments and special districts have the ability to short-change voters when it comes to tax hikes and bond and board elections, says a state senator. And he wants to rectify that.

Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, who has run a number of tax-fighting bills before, is preparing three bills for the 2010 Legislature aimed, he says, at making local governments more responsive to residents via the ballot box.

Stephenson, whose private job is president of the Utah Taxpayers Association, a business-backed group that routinely fights tax increases, wants to:

Allow bond and special elections only once a year on the November election day. (There is now a June special election date, also.)

Require one central voting place for all ballot questions. (Some special districts and school boards can now set up separate balloting locations.)

"Keep open the window" for signature collections on tax-hike referendums, thus making it easier to collect the required number of signatures to get a tax repeal referendum before voters.

Roger Tew, a lobbyist for the Utah League of Cities and Towns and some other local entities, says local officials want high voter turnout and aren't trying to depress voting for their own narrow ends.

Waiting for just a November bond election could mean a local government or school district could miss out on either a good bond rate or low construction costs, or both, he said. And to perhaps get better voter turnout in November it could cost local taxpayers more money, he added.

"There are legitimate concerns on both sides, but local officials have no desire to thwart" voter turnout, Tew said.

Stephenson said it's clear to him and others that there may be some gamesmanship being played to the detriment of voter turnout and/or citizen education on ballot measures.

For example, Stephenson said, the Nebo School District this year held a bond election in late June, as current law allows.

In even-numbered years, that June date would be a primary election day, too, and so a number of voters may be going to the polls.

But in odd-numbered municipal election years, the primary is in September. So there was no other election to bring in Nebo district voters last June except the bond.