Election plan voted down

Electing a borough mayor will continue to require the winning candidate to secure 40 percent of the votes.

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly last week shot down Borough Mayor Tim Anderson's proposal that would have changed the election procedures for mayor back to how it was done before 1997. Then the victor had only to gain a simple majority over the other candidates running.

Anderson says he was only striving for consistency of election procedures with his ordinance.

"This wasn't meant for me. I'm not up for election this year. It's about fairness," Anderson said Wednesday. Given the assembly's action, he said he plans to introduce an ordinance at the June 18 meeting to make assembly candidates also get 40 percent of the vote to win so all borough elections are uniform.

Currently, those running for mayor are the only borough candidates that face a run-off if the votes are spread out among multiple candidates. By contrast, assembly members are elected by garnering more votes than anyone else, no matter what percentage of the vote they get. This means an assembly member could be elected with a low percentage of the tally as long as he or she gets at least one more vote than the second-place candidate.

Singling out the mayor's race for the 40-percent rule in July 1997 was done for political motives before a particularly contentious mayor's election that year, Anderson said.

"It was a political tactic used to make elections a little more difficult," Anderson said.

The fall 1997 election of borough mayor shows that the process can make all the difference between winning and losing. Then incumbent mayor Barbara Lacher faced five challengers in the preliminary race. Lacher took 38 percent of the vote while nearest challenger Darcie Salmon received 30 percent. The remaining votes were spread out among the other three candidates.

Under the old rule, Lacher would have won. But although Lacher received almost 500 votes more than Salmon, the race went down to a run-off election between them. There, Salmon was able to capture more votes, possibly from voters who had supported losing candidates in the first election. He ultimately won, getting 4,218 votes to Lacher's 3,498.

Anderson's challenge to Salmon in 2000 did not require a run-off since only the two of them ran. Anderson beat Salmon 4,951 to 4,292.

Run-off elections also don't come cheap. Each run-off costs the borough roughly $20,000-$30,000 to cover costs of ballots, reserving polling places and elections workers, according to Borough Clerk Sandra Dillon.

Supporters of the 40-percent rule for mayor would point to the 1997 race as evidence the winning candidate should be forced to take a bigger chunk of the overall vote.

"Anyone who becomes an elected official without majority rule has a credibility problem," assembly member Jim Colver said during the June 5 discussion of the ordinance. Requiring more votes, Colver contends, helps to preserve the integrity of the position and legitimacy of the election. Colver, like Anderson, would support requiring assembly member races to also follow the rule, he said.

But others supporting the 40-percent rule pointed out that mayor is the only borough position representing the entire Mat-Su Borough. And with election turnouts usually as low as about 22 percent for borough elections, winners should have to get more votes.

"This ordinance is suggesting a cheap way out for the election of a mayor who represents more than 60,000 residents," said former assembly member Jay Nolfi, who testified at a June 5 public hearing. "It might be better stated as an easy way out for a poor loser."

But assembly member Sara Jansen pointed out that legitimacy and credibility is a matter of perception.

"I'm here because I won by eight votes. Does that make me less or more of somebody?" Jansen asked.

Further, even requiring 40 percent of the votes when locals aren't showing up at the polls may not achieve the goal of getting a mayor supported by a majority of borough residents.

"Forty percent of an 18-percent turnout is not a majority of the voters that live here," Jansen said.

The proposal to do away with the 40-percent requirement for the mayor's race was defeated with assembly members Jansen and Talis Colberg in favor and Bruce Bush, Colver and Jody Simpson opposing. Members Dan Kelly and Kelly Lankford-Ladere were absent.